by TOM LaMARRE, Sports Xchange

For the second consecutive year, the Tour Championship this week at East Lake in Atlanta will be anticlimactic, which should send commissioner Tim Finchem and other Tour officials back to the drawing board.

It's not only that Vijay Singh has virtually wrapped up the FedEx Cup early, much the same as Tiger Woods did a year ago. The volatility of the new points system has left more questions than answers.

Most notably, how does Padraig Harrington not make the field of the Tour Championship after winning the British Open and the PGA Championship?

Even Camilo Villegas could see it after winning the BMW Championship two weeks ago and climbing to second in the FedEx Cup standings behind Singh.

"We don't want to talk about the FedEx Cup, do we?" said Villegas, who was 42nd in the standings heading into the playoffs. "I don't know. I just think it needs improvement.

"It is just very, very unfair for the guys that have busted themselves all year, worked hard, played great. We've got a good example. The guy (Padraig Harrington) that has a great chance of being Player of the Year is not going to play the Tour Championship."

Said Jim Furyk: "I think we overcooked it."

Added Hunter Mahan: "You can't have 144 guys starting. They don't let every team in the playoffs, they cut it down pretty good."

And Trevor Immelman offered this: "I don't think it's fair that we have a guy who has made over $2 million in prize money not getting into the Tour Championship. I think at that point you might have a scenario where the sponsor of the Tour Championship says, 'Hang on a minute, are we sure we have the top 30 guys here at our event?'

"(Harrington) is going to be the Player of the Year. How can you not have the Player of the Year and two-time major winner in the Tour Championship?"

Perhaps it's a matter of semantics. Since the playoffs are an entity entirely of themselves, perhaps the finale should be named the FedEx Championship instead of the Tour Championship.

That would distinguish the tournament from what it was until last year, a reward for playing well throughout the season. With the advent of the playoffs, that event really does not exist anymore.

Harrington, for his part, has been a gentleman about it, saying he didn't play well enough to deserve a spot in the Tour Championship after missing the cut in the Barclays and the Deutsche Bank Championship to open the playoffs.

However, he believes in the basic concept of the playoffs even though he thinks changes need to be made.

"I think the whole idea is this (the FedEx Cup) is a four-week event," Harrington said. "I think the system needs tweaking, but I don't think it needs tweaking to keep people in there. I think you need to have people missing out. We need to have players get knocked out. That's what happens in a playoff.

"I would reduce the points in the first two weeks for just making the cut (and) increase the points higher up. I'd probably double the points in the BMW Championship (week three) to make it as volatile as it was in the last couple of weeks (in the Barclays and Deutsche Bank), and double the points again at the Tour Championship.

"I'd probably say the first two weeks should count on a scale of, say, one, the third week two and the last week three in terms of how players should move around."

Some middle-tier players who simply made the cut in the first two events were rewarded by moving on to the last two events, where there is no cut.

Others who won tournaments and played well over the course of the season -- most notably Harrington, Boo Weekley and Geoff Ogilvy -- did not.

"If I make the Tour Championship, I make it. If I don't, I really don't give a (bleep)," said Ogilvy, who finished two spots out of the top 30 and missed a trip to Atlanta. "It's not the Tour Championship it used to be.

"It probably meant more before than it does now, because it was a reward for 40 weeks. Now it's a nod to the year and making the cut at (the first two playoff events). The four weeks (of playoffs) are as important as the 40 preceding them."

Last year, Woods skipped the Barclays to open the playoffs but then tied for second behind Phil Mickelson on the Deutsche Bank and captured the BMW to almost wrap up the FedEx Cup before making it a runaway by winning the Tour Championship, too.

Singh was so far ahead this time after winning the Barclays and the Deutsche Bank that it didn't matter that he tied for 44th in the BMW Championship. That's because Villegas knocked all of the other contenders out of the running for the $10 million prize by winning the BMW.

Not having Woods, sidelined by knee surgery, there to challenge the red-hot Fijian was bad luck for the PGA Tour, but still it seems obvious that further changes are necessary.

Or is it?

"I would say the structure of the playoffs, we like what we've seen," Finchem said. "I know there's some consternation about a player like Padraig Harrington, wins two majors, top 10 (in the World Golf Rankings), missed two cuts and he's ... not getting to Atlanta.

"But that's actually what we heard from a lot of fans that they wanted to see. They wanted it to feel more like a playoff, more like a do-or-die situation, and we just moved the needle a little bit in that regard, and so there is more volatility. That means on the upside and the downside. I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. It's something to look at."

Even though the overall state of the PGA Tour was strong, Finchem thought something was needed to spice things up after the PGA Championship, especially to get a little attention with football season kicking off.

So the NASCAR-style points chase was adopted. But, so far, it's only proved to be a cure for insomnia.

Notes and quotes

Michelle Wie coasted through the LPGA Tour sectional qualifying school, tying for fourth at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

The 18-year-old from Honolulu posted a score of 70-65-74-71 — 280, 8-under par, and advanced to final qualifying on Dec. 1-7 at LPGA International Golf Club in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Michelle Wie tees off at No. 10 during the second round of the LPGA Tour sectional qualifying school at Mission Hills Country Club. (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

"I felt like I played pretty solidly," said Wie, who was off to Stanford for her sophomore year after finishing the tournament in temperatures that soared to 102 degrees. "Had a couple mistakes here and there, but I did what I had to do.

"It was really hot. That's all I remember. Even in the shade, it's hot. I'm just waiting to get in the shower. I feel disgusting."

Sun-Ju Ahn of South Korea finished first at 66-66-72-68 — 272, followed by Anna Nordqvist of Sweden and Miki Saiki of Japan at 69-68-70-69 — 276.

Stacy Lewis of the Woodlands, Texas, the 2007 NCAA champion for the University of Arkansas who tied for third in the U.S. Women's Open this summer, shot 70-71-70-69 — 280 and tied for fourth with Wie.

Wie has played well at Mission Hills in the past, most notably when she was in the final group Sunday in the Kraft Nabisco Championship at the age of 13.

However, she almost didn't recognize the place this time.

"When I came the first time (this week), I didn't know where anything was because I was so used to everything being here by the grandstands," Wie said.

"Sometimes you play in front of a big crowd and sometimes you don't. The game's the same, the goal's still the same, the opportunity still's the same. I just try to play my game."

She had about 30 people following her group at the start of the final day, but that dwindled to about 12 in the searing heat.