Tiger's Super Bowl Win Ushers In Avalanche Of Not Particularly Flattering Football Analogies
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Doug Ferguson's Tour Championship/FedEx Cup finale game story features so much, well, cynicism. There's hope for the AP yet!
The FedEx Cup didn't change anything but Tiger Woods' bank account.It did seem like the worst case scenario was a Tour Championship battle in the final group whle another battle for the Cup took place in the early groups. Actually, a Tiger rout was much worse.
The PGA Tour's "new era in golf" came to a familiar conclusion Sunday when Woods captured the Tour Championship in record-setting fashion, closing with a 4-under 66 for an eight-shot victory at East Lake and his seventh title of the season.
The only difference?
This was the first time Woods walked away from one tournament with two trophies.
Along with winning the Tour Championship and its $1.26 million prize, Woods was a runaway winner of the FedEx Cup and the $10 million that goes into his retirement account.
If this was supposed to be the "Super Bowl" of golf, Woods spent most of the final round running out the clock.
This is beautiful:
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem first presented Woods with the crystal trophy from the Tour Championship. Before handing him the FedEx Cup trophy, Finchem alluded to the tour's promotion of the FedEx Cup by noting it had never been kissed.
And it still hasn't.
Woods simply held it aloft as the thousands around 18th green cheered.
Meanwhile, Steve Elling's football-inspired lede:
As it ultimately turned out, Tiger Woods could have taken a knee in the PGA Tour's so-called playoff finale and still won the biggest bonus in sports history.
But this is far more interesting:
None of the four players who had a mathematical chance of passing him this week earned enough points to eclipse what Woods had when he arrived at East Lake. So in addition to skipping the FedEx opener at Westchester, he could have taken a siesta this week, too.
Ric Clarson, one of the FedEx architects, seemed slightly taken aback when that fact was relayed during the final round. "That'll be a hard stat for us to look at, that he still could have won while only playing two," he said.
Gary D'Amato explores that angle a bit more in this piece and shares these astounding numbers, with-you guessed it-a football tie-in.
He breezed through 12 playoff rounds in a mind-blowing 59-under par. Throw out a "warm-up" 72 in his first playoff round and these are his scores: 64-67-67-67-67-65-63-64-63-64-66. That's not golf, it's the jersey numbers of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line.
Woods' adjusted scoring average this year is 67.79, which exactly matches his record average in 2000.
Meanwhile, Rob Matre posts final round images to go along some of his other fine work from the week, as does golf.com.
