Spider Man makes the 2008 Tour Championship sing

Camilo Villegas made the charge that made the
Tour Championship on Sunday

Constantly watching the best golfers on the planet makes it easy to forget just how fi ckle, how difficult this game can be. A single missed shot, one error of judgement, a little bit too much adrenaline, and an entire round, tournament or playoffs can slip away.

On Sunday the Tour Championship made for the perfect end to the PGA season, with one small exception: the outcome of the tournament had nothing to do with the outcome of the FedEx cup. Camilo Villegas was brilliant as he mounted a comeback on Sunday afternoon, firing on every cylinder and looking cool, calm and collected throughout. His birdie putt on #13 from 30-plus feet away broke six feet and rolled in dead-center. Welcome to the top of the leaderboard, again, Spidey.

If only Villegas' game had been even remotely close to this level a few weeks back at the Barclays. But he never got his game going at the Barclays, shot par two rounds in a row to miss the cut and fail to accumulate enough points to really give Vijay-jay a run for his money in the FedEx cup. A couple of weeks ago I did the calculations and thought Camilo had the wiggle room to beat Vijay-jay if he finished 1st yesterday and Vijay-jay finished last and I was wrong. My dream scenario took place, and Vijay-jay still took home the cup.

Sergio finished second-fiddle in a playoff for the second time in these playoffs. After last week's performance at the Ryder Cup, I'm actually starting to feel sorry for the lad. Garcia is in danger of becoming the poor man's Greg Norman - except Garcia has never won a single major and Norman has two. The brutal honest truth, however, is you don't deserve to win a tournament if you shoot over par on the final round when everyone around you is shooting under par. You might get lucky and pull it off, but at this level it simply isn't going to win.

Anthony Kim was in cruise control the first two days, and then underscored just how difficult golf can be: his number of fairways hit on Saturday plummeted and his position on the leaderboard did as well. Kim let his maturity slip at one point, and as Johnny Miller pointed out, "made three shots in a row like a 23 year old." What has been most impressive about Kim this year has been his maturity level, on and off the course, and how it has impacted his final scores. His bogey at #14 and subsequent missed putts to join the playoff were all heartbreakers. Hopefully they'll leave him as hungry for next year as I am to see him tear it up.

Mickelson? Lefty sang a song that is becoming too familiar as well: played incredible golf, put himself in a position to make the playoff and win the tournament with a 20-foot putt on the final hole, and missed it. Mickelson is, quite possibly, the most under-performing #2-ranked player in any sport worldwide. He continually finishes in the hunt, but hasn't been able to win the big one when it counted since Augusta a few years back. The fact that I can hold a performance like yesterday's against Phil just shows how high he set my expectations with that win at Augusta, and subsequent implosion.

 Regardless of the FedEx Cup ceremony yesterday, the day belonged to Camilo Villegas. He, along with Garcia, Kim and Mickelson, made the final tournament of the year everything we could hope for. With one exception...