Jim McCabe

No suspense? No argument there. The recently-concluded FedEx Cup playoff adventure was all but over halfway through. Vijay Singh saw to that by winning each of the first two tournaments.

You say the drama was anticlimactic? Guess what? Many a Super Bowl game worked more effectively than an ambien pill. Last year’s World Series? Only Red Sox fans were on the edge of their seats for Game 4, what with Boston being up, 3-0.

Sometimes the playoffs deliver a five-star performance, sometimes they don’t. If you were tuned in to the Tour Championship looking for a thrilling competition to see who would win the season-long points race and take home the $10 million, you were clearly let down. Singh came sleep-walking home in a share of 22nd place, beating just seven golfers in the field of 30, yet he put a warm embrace around that $10 million check and we’re quite sure he’s never felt so good about scoring 9-over par.

The awkwardness to it all — Singh finishing T-44 and T-22 in the last two playoffs, yet still waltzing home — led many to declare that the FedEx Cup isn’t working. Nonsense, it says here. It has worked. Not perfectly, of course, but quite well, and for starters, let’s remember what the concept was designed for in the first place:

To get the marquee names together for a series of tournaments from late August to mid-September, a time of year that had been so famously slow in the past.

Digest that, then consider some of what the FedEx Cup tournaments have brought. First, 2007:

• Steve Stricker wins a spirited duel with K.J. Choi and gets all emotional — as do many colleagues, which is a tribute to the great character of the champion.
• Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, with Singh as a supporting actor, go head-to-head outside of Boston in arguably the best PGA Tour stop of the year. The lefthander gets a rare win at Woods’s expense.
• Making up for that loss, Woods goes back-to-back, winning the BMW Championship and Tour Championship, the latter by a whopping eight strokes.

Now, 2008:

• Sergio Garcia slam-dunks a lengthy putt at the close and puts one hand around the Barclays title ... only to see Singh match it with an improbable roll, then win in a playoff.
• Shaking off challenges from Garcia, Ernie Els, Mike Weir, and Camilo Villegas, Singh wins the Deutsche Bank Championship to virtually wrap up the second FedEx Cup.
• Undaunted by coming up short at the DBC and where ever else he had challenged, Villegas wins the BMW Championship, then backs it up by taking the Tour Championship. The latter came in a playoff against Garcia, after having thwarted thrilling back-nine challenges by Mickelson and the game’s rising star, Anthony Kim.

Again, take stock of the playoff winners — Woods, Singh, Mickelson, Stricker, Villegas. Those five names sit within the top 11 in the world rankings. And those who’ve challenged and been left a shot or two out of glory? Garcia, Choi, Kim, and even Jim Furyk.

Special feature FedEx Cup Check out which golfers are currently in the top 30 of the FedEx Cup standings. NBCSports.com

You think Commissioner Tim Finchem has liked seeing those names go at it? It’d be like asking the NFL commissioner if he’d like to see the Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, and New York Giants involved in the Super Bowl tournament every year. The teams with national appeal are always desirable and so, too, is it good when the marquee names get into the hunt at a golf tournament.

That has happened at all eight of the playoffs and while the ultimate goal — to have the final holes of the Tour Championship determine the FedEx Cup winner — hasn’t occurred, come on, it’s only been two years. Be honest, those first two Super Bowls were forgettable affairs, then the NFL made changes.

The FedEx Cup points distribution system needed to be tweaked after 2007 and it was; the only thing is, it was probably over-tweaked, so expect another attempt in 2009, and my guess is it will edge the playoff system closer to being really, really good.

But as we wait to see what 2009 brings, let’s not brush aside 2007 and 2008, because while the battle to win those overall cup titles lacked punch, the tournaments played along the way certainly did not. There was star power and elite play — and show me September tournaments from previous years when you could say that.

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