Boss Tim

Norman 's idea died, at least for a few years. It was brought back to life by Finchem, of all people. In 1999 Finchem introduced the World Golf Championships, initially four annual tournaments to be played around the world. These global events were the cornerstones of a revamped schedule that came with the blockbuster four-year, $1 billion TV deal Finchem negotiated in the heady months after Woods 's epic victory at the 1997 Masters.

In the early years the WGCs visited Spain , Argentina , Australia , Ireland and Japan , but over the last few seasons the events have become increasingly tethered to the U.S. , especially after the vagabond World Cup was stripped of its WGC status in 2006. The three remaining tournaments are for the foreseeable future anchored at unimaginative venues in such cosmopolitan destinations as Akron and Tucson . The WGC's Americanization has forced top international players to consolidate their schedules in the U.S. , badly hurting their home tours. "Finchem is either blind to it, or he simply doesn't care what kind of effect he has on the rest of the world," Norman tells SI. "The PGA Tour is such a powerhouse it has a global responsibility to the game, whether he likes it or not."

Finchem is candid that television is the primary reason the WGCs no longer have a global profile, as domestic ratings have tumbled whenever the tournaments were played overseas. "We still export the game, just by TV," says Finchem. "That said, we would like to get back to where the tournaments move around. It simply wasn't available to us this time around because of the structure of our television agreements."

A juicy postscript to the world tour machinations came at Norman 's Hall of Fame induction in 2001. From the dais Finchem credited his old adversary with the original concept of a global golf tour. It was a classy move by the commissioner but still left Norman seething.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing," Norman said back in '04. "Cut a guy's legs off, then give him a pair of shoes. Never, ever will I forgive Tim Finchem , and he can induct me into a Hall of Fame once a week."

Finchem fought off another challenge in 1998, when three veteran players—Mark Brooks, Danny Edwards and Larry Rinker—founded the Tour Players Association , conceived as a union of sorts to give the players more of a voice in Tour operations. The TPA was born out of frustration when its founders were stonewalled in an attempt to get the Tour to release salary information on its top executives. (The numbers are now released annually.) Finchem knew the players generally vote their pocketbooks, and with the WGCs already guaranteeing fat paychecks to the top players, Finchem was able to appease the Tour's middle class by pouring bonus money into the retirement plan and allowing players to fully vest after five years on Tour, a standard that replaced the old, onerous requirement of having to make 150 cuts, which could take a decade or more. With the players increasingly fat and happy the TPA could never gain any traction and the rebellion quietly fizzled. In the spring of '99 Finchem sought out Rinker, who as the TPA's secretary had been an outspoken critic of the commissioner. Shaking Rinker's hand, Finchem channeled the Corleone family mantra, saying, "Larry, it's just business."

Finchem has even been able to co-opt the most powerful man in golf. In late 2000, as Woods was putting the finishing touches on the greatest season in golf history, he took time out to blast the commissioner in the press over a series of simmering grievances, including his desire to wrest more control from the Tour over how his image and likeness were to be used. Woods's criticism of Finchem took on a personal tone when he was quoted as saying, "The only time he talks to me is when he wants me to do something for him. It's not like he ever asks me how I'm doing."

A few weeks later a chastened Finchem met with Woods and said and did all the right things. "My relationship with Tim has definitely improved because of it," Woods later said. "He was very candid, very open. I appreciated that. There was a lot of fence-mending."

Finchem helped secure the uneasy peace in 2002 when the Tiger Woods Foundation was made the beneficiary of the newly created Deutsche Bank Championship. Last year he went one step farther, giving Woods his own tournament, the AT&T National, for which Woods 's foundation is also the charitable beneficiary. The AT&T National filled a hole in the schedule created by the demise of the International, which for 21 years was widely regarded as one of the best-run tournaments on Tour. In its final years the International had struggled to lock up long-term corporate sponsorship. The tournament's patriarch, Jack Vickers , a wily former oil baron, claimed to be working toward a blockbuster deal to save the tournament, but he couldn't complete it in time. On Feb. 8, 2007, Finchem and his top lieutenants flew to Denver for a tense press conference announcing that the International was kaput, effective immediately. Less than three weeks later the Tour was trumpeting the creation of the AT&T National, at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda , Md.

Conspiracy theorists have long puzzled over how the death of a tournament that couldn't attract Woods so quickly led to the birth of another event that trades so heavily on his star power. Reached for comment last month, Vickers could not hide his lingering dismay. "They were less than straightforward with me," he said of Finchem and the rest of the Tour brass. "They were doing things behind my back that I was not aware of. If that's the way they want to do business, fine, but it's not how I like to be treated."