Handing Out End-of-Year Awards

Round of Year: Tiger Woods' 63 in the second round of the PGA Championship at sweltering Southern Hills allowed him to vault into a lead he never relinquished in winning his only major title of the season.

Choke of Year: Australian Aaron Baddeley had a two-shot lead after 54 holes at the U.S. Open, then triple bogeyed the first hole on Sunday on his way to a final round of 80.

Best Finish of Year: Veteran Jay Williamson, playing on a sponsor's exemption at the Travelers in his home state of Connecticut after spending most of the season on the Nationwide Tour, went head to head down the stretch Sunday with young Hunter Mahan, also trying to win his first PGA event. Mahan ultimately prevailed, but Williamson earned enough money that day and the rest of the year -- a total of $835,515 -- to be fully exempt on the big tour next season.

Shame of Year: Michelle Wie's season-long meltdown before heading off to her freshman year at Stanford. Once considered a can't-miss teenage prodigy, Wie's confidence was shattered with each passing failure as she tried to play through a wrist injury that never seemed to heal, though she still has more than enough talent to qualify for 2008 comeback player of the year honors, if only her parents and her handlers would just start doing the right stuff.

Rumor of Year: That Tiger Woods was dropping Hank Haney as his swing instructor. Not even remotely true, Woods said on his web site, explaining that Haney was merely spending less time with him to deal with his wife's health problems.

Best New Event of Year: The AT&T National in the Washington suburbs is the clear provincial choice, if only because Woods' first-year signature event at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda drew a decent enough field -- including his Tigerness -- and attracted more than 70,000 spectators on the weekend, a record crowd for any golf event in the nation's capital.

Emotional Victory of Year: Scott Verplank prevailed at the Byron Nelson Classic in Dallas, the first year after Nelson's death in 2006. Verplank was befriended by Nelson when he was 16 and had always ached to win the tournament, finally breaking through with what seemed like a heaven-sent victory.

Surprise of Year: Phil Mickelson ditched his long-time teacher, friend and business partner Rick Smith in favor of Butch Harmon, then won The Players Championship four weeks later.

Injury of Year: Bad wrist. Ask Mickelson and Wie.

Whiner of Year: Sergio Garcia in a landslide. After losing to Harrington at Carnoustie, he said "I should write a book on how not to miss a shot in the playoff and shoot one-over. It's not the first time, unfortunately. I'm playing against a lot of guys out there, more than the field."

Best Idea of Year: Yes, the FedEx Cup really did work, accomplishing its stated goals of improving overall interest and television ratings following the last major championship for the three regular tour events leading into the Tour Championship. The format obviously still needs some more tweaking, particularly to its still unfathomable point system, but it got off to a grand start, mostly thanks to our PGA Tour Player of the Year (yeah dummy, that would be Tiger Woods), arguably the best there ever was.

Leonard Shapiro can be reached at Badgerlen@hotmail.com or Badgerlen@aol.com.