Behold the Tao of Woody: After shooting back-to-back rounds of 65 and working his way into the final twosome on Saturday with Tiger Woods, golf's resident philosopher, Woody Austin said of the world's best player, "When he's playing well he's not hard to beat, but he's hard to catch." 

And that restaurant has gotten so crowded that nobody goes there anymore.

Woods, who played the first 27 holes of the tour championship in 13 under, which is where he stands (alone at the top with a two-shot lead over Austin) going into the weekend, looked exactly as you'd think he would when asked about Austin's comment. His first response was, "Excuse me? Say again." When the quote was repeated Tiger stared for a second and then said, "I don't know what to say to that." 

No one else seemed to, either. But that's Woody Austin for you. Yogi would certainly be proud. 

They sure made it look like a pitch-and-putt, but East Lake Golf Club is not as easy as the 30 finalists in the FedEx Cup, including the winner Tiger Woods, made it look. Yes the average score for the week was a shade north of 67, and, yes, new course records were set two days, and, oh yeah, Tiger did shoot 28 on the front nine on Friday, and finished the week a whopping 23 under par, yes, yes, indeedee, Zach Johnson, a guy who was labeled "The Who" by British journalists at last year's Ryder Cup, shot 60 on Saturday. But historically the golf course hasn't been such a cake walk.

Hal Sutton shot 6-under the first year the Tour Championship was held at East Lake. He walked off saying "This course could host a U.S. Open tomorrow." That wasn't too much hyperbole when you consider that Lee Janzen shot 4-under to win the U.S. Open that year, and Vijay Singh won the PGA Championship that year with a 9-under total, a virtual ...

Before the start of the second round of the Tour Championship, Butch Harmon nudged Adam Scott in the ribs and said, "It's pretty sweet that Tiger's trying to swing like you now." 

In fact, there have been some noticeable changes in Tiger's swing of late. Gone are the exaggerated follow-throughs, the long, flat backswings, and the flat left wrist. The Tiger of today looks remarkably similar to the Tiger of 2001, a time when everyone said Scott's swing looked just like Tiger's. According to those in a position to know such things, there might be a good reason for Tiger's new look. According to sources close to the situation, Tiger and Hank Haney are, in a word, done. As one source put it, "They're not making it public yet, but they're done. And you can tell by the way he's swinging the golf club."

If true, this has been coming for some time. As early as April, when Tiger finished sec ...

Not long after Adam Scott rolled in his third birdie putt in a row during Friday's second round at East Lake, Scott's instructor Butch Harmon got a message on is Blackberry. It was from Natalie Gulbis, who had just finished her day at the Solheim Cup in Sweden. The message read: "What do I need to do? I'm pushing short putts and keeping my head stiff. So mad that I lost my match, but the team's kicking Europe's ass."

Butch did not respond immediately. But he promised to before the end of the day. "It's a five-hour time difference. I'll give her a call after dinner over there," he said. 

Nothing like giving lessons on two continents at the same time. 

Early Friday morning, the 30 greatest golfers in the game resumed play at historic East Lake Golf Club in the final playoff event of the FedEx Cup, the grand finale of the 2007 PGA Tour season. And the fans numbered in the....dozens. 

OK, that's not entirely fair. There were a couple of hundred people between the first tee and the driving range, but if the majors are golf's ultimate benchmarks, the galleries for this championship are puny at best. Twenty people gathered outside the locker room waiting for Tiger to emerge. At the Masters that number is at least a hundred, and at the British Open the Tiger mob can easily hit four digits. Organizers can't be blamed. In a pre-tournament press release, tournament officials boasted "that all tickets to the event, which is the culminating tournament to the first-ever PGA Tour Playoffs for the FedEx Cup, are completely sold out. This marks the first sell-out since 2000 for The Tour Championship, and approximatel ...

Poor Tim Finchem has to feel snake bit. Not only have the players criticized his baby, the season-long spectacle called the FedEx Cup, the media has panned it, fans have yawned at it: heck, even Jack Nicklaus said he didn't understand it. Now he's having to deal with a hurricane. A few minutes after 2:00, just as Phil Mickelson and Rory Sabbatini walked to the second tee at East Lake, the storm siren blew and play was suspended due to what native Atlantans call "a gully washer." This in a state experiencing the worst drought in record-keeping history. 

Adding insult to insufferable injury, right after the storm siren blared and the course emptied, the Tour handed out a terse press release that reads: "Remnants of Hurricane Humberto will be pulled northeast into Alabama by tomorrow afternoon as a cold front continues to move south out of the Midwest. Deep tropical mo ...