More Than Cash at Stake

And so it has come to this: After 10 months, 47 tournaments and about $229 million in official prize money, the PGA Tour calls it a year at the Tour Championship in Houston, where the stakes are surprisingly high, not to mention the dough.

They could line every bunker with bank notes at Champions Golf Club and still have piles left over in this $6-million, season-ending special party for the top 31 money-makers on the tour. Today they’ll start a 72-hole cash course in learning how to become even more wealthy.

That’s what it amounts to when the winner gets $1.08 million, last place is worth $90,000 and everybody plays all four days.

But in something of a strange twist, this time it’s not all about the money.

Still up for grabs are two of the most coveted awards -- the Jack Nicklaus Trophy for player of the year and the Arnold Palmer Award for the leading money winner.

Usually, at this point in the season, these awards have been wrapped up. In fact, the winner of both awards the last four years has been Tiger Woods.

The reason neither award has been nailed down in 2003 is because of, well, Woods, which seems only appropriate.

What caused this situation is that Woods didn’t win a major in 2003. He has won five tournaments, though, and he’s probably going to get a fifth consecutive player-of-the-year award if he wins a sixth at the Tour Championship. Woods’ primary competition comes from Vijay Singh, who has won four times and leads the money list with $7.34 million, which is $768,494 more than Woods.

As for Singh, he is playing in his 26th tournament -- eight more than Woods -- and will be only the second player since 1997 other than Woods to win the money title if he does no worse than tie for third this weekend (David Duval won the money title in 1998). He and Woods are paired together for today’s first round.

There is one award that Woods has all but secured, the Byron Nelson Award for the lowest scoring average. Woods is No. 1 with a 68.19 average, and unless he pumps a few balls out of bounds every round in Houston, he’s going to win it for the fifth consecutive year.

In other Nelson news, Woods is a cinch to break Nelson’s record of making the cut in 113 consecutive tournaments, simply because there is no cut this week.

Parity, if that’s what it is, may have broken out on the PGA Tour this year, and that is something PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem finds amusing, if for no other reason than for a refreshing change in the line of questioning.

“I got a question last week that said, ‘How concerned are you that Tiger’s not dominating the tour this year?’ For the last five years, I’ve been answering the question, ‘How concerned are you that Tiger’s dominating the tour?’ ”

Perception plays an important part in a lot of ways. The players vote for the year’s top player and that might mean it could turn out to be a personality contest, which wouldn’t necessarily help Singh, although he is clearly more popular with those in the locker room than he is with those in the interview room.

“I think that Vijay off the golf course, around the players, is a lot better-liked than people think he is,” Davis Love III said. “I just don’t think he does a very good job when he walks off the 18th green.”

Singh has two victories and two second-place finishes in his last four events. Other than his tie for 34th at the PGA Championship, he has been in the top 10 at every tournament since the British Open.

What’s more, Singh is playing eight consecutive tournaments to end the year in an effort to wrest the money title from Woods.

Don’t think Tiger hasn’t noticed. But he said the money race isn’t a big priority.

“If it was a big priority, I would have played 25 [or] 30 events each and every year, but it’s not,” he said.

“I’m very happy winning five or six events every year out of 18 or 20 events. That’s not a bad percentage.”

Love believes that money earned per tournament might be a better indicator of what player has been most effective, and that might be a factor in Woods’ favor in the final balloting for player of the year.

“Tiger is obviously not going to play the schedule that Vijay plays,” he said. “Money can get a little skewed.”

There are 6 million reasons to believe he’s right, although the dough is sharing the main stage with Woods and Singh this week in an unexpectedly meaningful season-ending payday.

So, can Woods pull off another player-of-the-year award?

“That’s the way I would vote,” he said.