If golf issued style points, Na Yeon Choi wouldn’t have earned any during her final round of the Samsung World Championship Sunday, but she won the tournament nonetheless.

The 21-year-old South Korean won the championship at Torrey Pines in San Diego, CA, this weekend with a 16-under performance, but she made the tournament a lot closer by losing a seven-stroke lead during the final round and only finishing with a 1-under 71.

Choi managed to hold off the competition, mainly Ai Miyazato and rookie phenom Jiyai Shin, by sinking a birdie putt on No. 18 after bogeying a few holes earlier in the round. Choi beat Miyazato by one stroke and with five strokes over Shin.

A former Korean LPGA player, Sunday was Choi’s first LPGA Tour win in her two-year career despite carding four bogeys during the final round.

Coming close to spoiling Choi’s party was Miyazato. The Japanese veteran of three years has been on a terror lately, finishing in the Top-6 five times, winning the Evian Masters and placing 10th during her last seven events. An approach shot that bobbled into a water hazard on the 18th cost Miyazato a chance to steal the event.

Tournament favorite Shin came up a little short as well despite leading the field through the first two rounds. Shin still finished for third place and continues to lead the pack for the Rolex Player of the Year and the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year awards.

All three will have five events to play before the season finale, the LPGA Tour Championship.

Apparently Tiger Woods didn’t like being knocked out of the top spot of the FedExCup standings by Steve Stricker.

After dropping a position in the standings, Tiger roared to an impressive win at the BMW Championship at Coghill Golf and Country Club in Illinois this weekend with a 19-under par performance.

Woods’ play was arguably some of his best of the year. Averaging a score of 66 for four rounds, Tiger only faltered for four bogeys — one during each round.

His Saturday performance was most impressive with a 9-under 62 showing with an eagle on No. 9 and birdies on eight other holes. Tiger’s 62 broke the Coghill course record and came up one birdie short of tying his career-best round.

Golf fans saw the Tiger of old Saturday and Sunday as he pinpointed his approach shots to within 10 feet or less on most holes. His shot accuracy led to a No. 4 ranking of the field in greens in regulation.

And Tiger’s putter wasn’t failing him either as he tied for second in the field for fewest putts per round (26.5). Tiger dropped an outrageous 19 birdie putts and two eagle putts during the tournament.

Sunday’s victory put Tiger back into first place in the FedExCup standings, gave him 2,500 reset points for THE TOUR Championship in Atlanta in two weeks, and a shot to end the season on a great note despite failing to win a major.

Aside from Tiger’s victory, Sunday also became cut day for a majority of pro golfers as the final 30 players eligible for THE TOUR Championship was decided by the FedExCup standings.

Most notable of missing the cut was Brandt Snedeker. The young player from Tennessee, ranked 28th in the FedExCup standings before the BMW Championship, fell to 32nd and out of the FedExCup hunt after four-putting the final hole of the tournament.

Other high-profile players who missed the top-30 to compete in THE TOUR Championship include Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Anthony Kim, Rory Sabbatini, Camilo Villegas, and Justin Leonard among others.

The remaining 30 golfers will have a week’s rest until teeing it up for the FedExCup at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, GA, on Sept. 24-27.

Tomorrow starts up another weekend of the PGA Tour Playoffs, this time with a field of 100 at the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston in Massachusetts.

Of the 100 names, the top five from last weekend’s Barclays are the heavy favorites for the tournament title this weekend. However, I suggest golf fans should steer away from the favorites and look toward the consistent.

While no one can doubt that Tiger Woods will toy around with the Top 5 this weekend, Steve Stricker, Ernie Els, Heath Slocum and Padraig Harrington are definitely not locks for repeats of the Barclays.

And if this playoff setup is supposed to reward the most successful player of the year, maybe we should look at who has been the most consistent all year.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at two unsung heroes from the 2009 season that are still in the thick of the FedExCup standings and are relatively due for a big, and possibly glorious, outing.

Exhibit A: Hunter Mahan

Here is an Oklahoma State graduate who has played some consistent golf all year but has struggled to score a tournament victory.

In 21 events, Mahan has placed in the Top-10 six times, in the Top-25 14 times and ranks fourth in the PGA in scoring average. His best showing was a runner-up finish to Woods at the AT&T National over the July 4 weekend.

He also placed fourth twice and sixth twice over the course of the season, pushing him to No. 26 on the Official World Golf Ratings.

As of the Deutsche Bank Championship, Mahan sits at 15th in the FedExCup standings and strives for his second career win since his first in 2007. Last week, he placed 20th and seven strokes behind The Barclays winner, Heath Slocum.

Simply put, Mahan shoots low scores, but just not low enough to win the silverware this year. Needless to say, he’s due for some celebration.

Exhibit B: Zach Johnson

The die-hard Iowa Hawkeyes fan has had an impressive season, putting together seven Top-10 finishes, including two wins, in 22 tournaments this year.

Not a big whopper off the tee (he is actually under the PGA distance average), Johnson has used his 71 percent driving accuracy and 68 percent greens in regulation percentage to always keep him in a position to win and score low (he ranks fifth for scoring average).

However, Johnson’s two wins at the Sony Open in Hawaii and the Valero Texas Open were early in the season and his best recent finish was runner-up at the John Deere Open in July. He also placed in a tie for 28th during The Barclays

Sitting at fifth place in the FedExCup standings, Johnson could use a victory at the Deutsche Bank Championship to build up the confidence and momentum to give Woods a run for his money during THE TOUR Championship, the finale of the FedExCup, on Sept. 27.

As a longtime baseball fan, I love when October rolls around for Major League Baseball.

After a long, grueling regular season, every team that makes the playoffs is on close-to-even ground. Just because your team won the most games from April through September doesn’t make you a shoe-in for the World Series, but it does start you against an opponent with a lower season record.

This weekend, professional golf’s proverbial October begins with The Barclays tournament at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, NJ — and I couldn’t be more eager to watch.

The Barclays kicks of the beginning of the PGA Tour Playoffs where all competitors are challenging for the FedExCup.

In years past, the PGA Championship usually signified the end of the PGA Tour season. But since the FedExCup’s introduction in 2007, the big name players have found two more reasons to keep playing into the autumn — a shiny new trophy signifying you are the best of the PGA Tour and a $10 million bonus.

As Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh would attest, this is a great honor to have (Woods won the inaugural year, followed by Singh in 2008). However, it might be a little more difficult for the two to add this year’s silverware to their trophy case because the PGA Tour changed the format of the playoffs.

In 2007 and 2008, players earned points during the regular season to qualify for the four-tournament playoff. Once the playoffs started, the points system was reset and everyone started at an equal playing ground — kind of like the Major League Baseball playoffs.

The only problem with the system was that if someone performed well in the first two of four events, they could coast to the championship trophy in the final two tournaments, much like Vijay Singh did in 2008.

The PGA noticed this weakness in the setup and changed it for 2009 to make sure that all four tournaments mean something in the playoff series. Here is the playoff setup for the FedExCup:

-- The top 125 golfers will enter The Barclays this weekend. Of the top 125 golfers, 25 will be cut from the field that will compete during the Deutsche Bank Championship next week. Only the top 70 will compete in the BMW Championship Sept. 10-13 and just 30 will make THE TOUR Championship on Sept. 24-27.

-- The FedExCup point system will be quintupled for the playoffs. So a tournament win will equal 2,500 points for a golfer, compared to the 250 to 600 points for winning tournaments during the regular season. Such a setup will level the playing field between golfers who performed impressively during the regular season and those performing well in the playoffs. This is one major change to the points system of last year.

-- Once the field is narrowed down to 30 for the playoff finale — THE TOUR Championship — the points will be reset, assuring that the FedExCup will be decided at THE TOUR Championship.

-- THE TOUR Championship will be set up so the playoff standings leader starts with 2,500 points, second place gets 2,250 and so on down to 210 for the 30th-ranked golfer. With the reset, every golfer has a mathematical chance to win the FedExCup, some with more control of their destinies than others.

With the new system, the playoffs will allow players like Sergio Garcia (No. 89 of the 125 field) to take on Tiger Woods (leading the FedExCup regular season point standings) for the silverware if he can outplay the 2009 PGA Tour Money List leader during this string of four tournaments.

In short, September is no longer a time for most of the pros on the PGA Tour to pack up their golf bags and call it season — It’s a time to win a new piece of silverware and a multi-million dollar prize.

So, golf fans, don’t flip the TV channel over to college or pro football just yet. There’s plenty of good golf to watch in the next couple of weeks.

As I sat and watched Y.E. Yang of South Korea putt-in a birdie on the 18th hole Sunday, I couldn’t help but think about how the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, MN, would really be remembered or how the history books would illustrate it.

Watching a 37-year-old PGA rookie celebrate as the first Asian-born player to win a major, I could only notice how that fact would be buried among the greater scheme of the story that unfolded.

Which is a real shame and I’ll explain why.

Here is a golfer who surged in his last two days of major championship. Dropping putts in the third round left and right like they were old girlfriends, Yang chewed up and spit out all the challenges Hazeltine National could throw at him Saturday and nailed nearly every shot on Sunday.

But sadly his performance and his story will be trumped by the failure of another golfer.

The fact that Tiger Woods lost his first major after topping the leaderboard through three rounds, by a 110th-ranked player no less, will leave its mark on the 2009 PGA Championship. As it usually goes, the ends of impressive streaks always cast a shadow on the beginnings of new ones.

Sure, Tiger played well enough to win the championship, but he wasn’t the same player we’ve seen before.

In a majority of Tiger’s wins, he always had those moment-defining shots that were guaranteed airtime on ESPN that evening; shots that showed why he was a leap above the rest.

Like Matt Just, Life Time Fitness’ Class A PGA golf pro, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press last Monday while he assisted Woods at the Hazeltine driving range, Tiger is full of these “Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan moments where everyone will go silent right before he hits each ball.”

But during the PGA Championship, Tiger eased his way above the rest, never really hitting a shot that ended with a energetic fist pump from the walking legend which basically screamed “Try and beat me now!”

Instead, we saw Yang making those shots, defining the moments; showing no fear because he had nothing to lose during the rounds.

With a magnificent chip-in for eagle on the 14th hole, Yang proved he was the best player on the links in Minnesota this past week. And with his 200-plus-yard pin-seeking approach shot from the rough on the 18th hole, Yang showed he would not be intimidated by Wood’s red Sunday shirt or the thought of a major championship victory.

Yet sad to say, Yang’s great weekend of glory will be trumped by Tiger’s first real memorable defeat. Or to deviate from a tired cliché, the 2009 PGA championship will not be remembered for the rise of a David, but instead for the fall of a Goliath.