The International Herald Tribune puts it this way: Two majors versus four months of greatness.

That’s what it really comes down to this year. Does Tiger Woods deserve Player of the Year honors for winning four out of six, including a US Open Title, before a season ending knee surgery, or does it go to Padraig Harrington for his victories at the Open Championship and the PGA?

I give my vote to Harrington. A torrid stretch such as Tiger experienced is one thing, but sucking it up and putting together two victories in the Majors—and back to back at that—is an amazing feat.

Congratulations are in order for Davis Love on the occasion of his 20th tour victory. Love’s win this last weekend at the Children’s Miracle Network Classic put him in some rarefied company. Among active players, only Tiger, Vijay and Phil have 20 wins. The win also puts Love in the top 35 of all time.

And there’s an added bonus: Love, who started the Fall series outside the cut at 150, now is exempt for life. It’s a remarkable comeback from the freak accident that tore two tendons in his leg last fall.

Outside his lone major (the 1997 PGA), and his two Players wins (1992 and 2003), this has got to be the biggest golfing moment for one of the Tour’s most enduring stars.

I’m scratching my head at the player choices for the annual Grand Slam of Golf (you can see it tonight from 4-7 pm EST on TNT, and on Wednesday from 5 - 9 EST on the same network). The tournament features Trevor Immelman, Padraig Harrington, Retief Goosen and Jim Furyk.

The idea of the tournament originally was to get the four reigning Major Champions together for a little two day shootout. So naturally, the choice of Trevor Immelman (winner of the 2008 Masters) and Padraig Harrington (winner of the 2008 Open Championship and the 2008 PGA Championship) make sense.

But what about the other two? I have this notion that in the absence of the other tournament winner—or in the case of a multiple winner (such as Harrington), the runners up ought to get a chance to play. In that case, you’d have Sergio Garcia , Ian Poulter or Ben Curtis (filling in for Harrington as the runner up in one of his two victories) and Rocco Mediate (US Open in place of Tiger)

Sergio and Rocco especially would make the tournament fun.

Instead, we have Retief Goosen and Jim Furyk. Fine players and past Major winners, to be sure, but neither really contended at this year’s US Open, PGA Championship or Open Championship. Here’s the tale of the tape:

Jim Furyk:
T 5 at the Open Championship
T 36 at the US Open
T 29 at the PGA Championship

Retief Goosen:
T 32 at the Open Championship
T 14 at the US Open
T 24 at the PGA Championship

Here’s another idea: In the absence of a winner from any particular Major, they should include the winner of one or more of the World Golf Championship events, in which case you’d have Geoff Ogilvy or Vijay Singh. Or perhaps the winner of the BMW Championship, arguably the European Tour’s biggest event, where Miguel Ángel Jiménez was this year’s winner.

I’ll probably tune in this evening for a while. Maybe the plot will be better than the cast.

Michigan’s only PGA Tour stop, the Buick Open, is moving back two weeks on the calendar, to July 30. That places the tournament two weeks before the PGA Championship, and—or so the thinking goes—increases the chances of a premium field. Many players, like Tiger Woods, prefer to play two weeks prior to a Major as a warm-up.

Unfortunately for The Golf Blogger, that’s the week when he typically is stuck in the wilderness with a bunch of Boy Scouts, living in a canvas tent and eating bad food.

Rex Hoggard in GolfWeek has a fairly balanced view of the recently completed FedEx Cup.

He points out correctly that it had some great tournaments, great venues, and a pretty good cast.

I guess I’ve been a bit too negative.

With no Tiger and no suspense, ratings for Sunday’s Tour Championship finish had an overnight rating of 1.8, down 54.5% from last year’s 3.3.

It’s too bad, since the Sunday finish itself was quite exciting.

But it’s probably reflective of a general disinterest in the whole thing. For most sports fans, the golf season largely ends with the PGA Championship. Soon after that, college and professional football begin, and the nation turns it’s weekend attention to the gridiron.

That’s why I’ve previously suggested that the Tour’s best move would be to hold the Tour Championship on the West Coast, or in Hawaii so the four event can be held on four weekdays in prime time. They could hold it Monday through Thursday (yes, the first round would conflict with Monday Night Football, but that’s far less problematic than having the final round conflict with a whole slate of NFL games).

The Tour’s also got to fix the points system. It’s clearly broken, since Vijay was able to win the $10 million check simply by showing up for the final tournament. Perhaps they should add more weight to the points earned at the Tour Championship.

And finally, I think they’ve got a bit of a identity issue. The Tour Championship is intended both as a prestigious tournament on its own, and at the same time is the culminating event for the season long points race. So Villegas can win the Tour Championship, but not go home with the big prize. At the same time, Vijay can sleepwalk through the final rounds, and still win the FedEx Cup.

That’s too confusing for me. Even though I know better, I still have the feeling that the Tour Championship IS the FedEx Cup. So in the back of my mind, I wonder how you can lose the Tour Championship and take home the big check.

I’d love to know how they’re going to fix this.

It needs fixing.

Update: Meanwhile, golf writer Lorne Rubenstein savages the FedEx Cup.

Always looking for a golf angle on the news, it occurred to me that the PGA Tour could suffer some sponsorship difficulties as a result of therecent financial market crisis. By my count, eleven of the tournament title sponsors this past year were financial services or banking companies, including: the FBR Open, the Northern Trust Open, the Accenture World Golf Classic, the Zurich Classic, Bay Hill (Mastercard), the Wachovia, the Memorial (Morgan Stanley), the Travelers Championship, the US Bank - Milwaukee, the Barclays Championship, and the Deutsche Bank Championship.

At least one of those companies—Wachovia—is acknowledged to be in trouble. Citigroup has just announced that they will buy Wachovia’s banking arm

Considering the trouble the Tour has had recently in finding replacement sponsors, I wonder what the result of all of this will be. Perhaps a shorter season. The remaining sponsors could be all be tucked into the schedule between January and the Tour Championship, killing off the Fall Series. That would make the big guns, who have been pressing for a shorter season, happier anyway.

I’m also wondering if a shortage of big money sponsors could prompt American stars to head out for the European Tour or other international events, as Phil has threatened to do. There, they can get appearance fees just for showing up.

I’m sure we will hear more about this in the coming weeks, as next year’s schedule is set.