Aug. 27, 2008 -- First off, congratulations to all the athletes who participated in the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Here's a quick recap for those of you who couldn't watch for whatever reason, such as you were suffering human rights violations at the hands of the host country's government:

*U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals, setting new Olympic records for most first-place finishes in a single Olympiad and most dangerously close to losing a swimsuit and forcing NBC to show the competition on a seven-second delay.

*The Beijing Games marked the debut of BMX racing as an Olympic sport. The London games in 2012 will feature other sports geared toward young people, including: Organ Piercing, Rhythmic Mall Loitering, and Competitive Apathy.

*Jamaica is apparently an island of hot coals. No country's runners ran faster, led by showboating sprinter Usain Bolt who could've won both the 100 and 200 meter races with the "Yay, beer!" guy from the Red Stripe commercials on his back. The only time Bolt was visible was toward the end of each race when he slowed down to make sure everyone in the crowd knew he was winning, giving him the appearance of Doc's DeLorean re-entering the space-time continuum.

*The U.S. won the overall medal count, though China finished with the most golds, thanks to a dominating performance in Freestyle Birth Certificate Falsification. Chinese gymnastics officials produced documents to rebuff accusations that members of its "women's" gymnastics team didn't meet the Olympic minimum age of 16. (The gymnasts themselves were given their passies to prevent them from personally answering questions about their ages.) These girls aged faster than preschoolers on soap operas who go off to summer camp with pigtails and a Cheetah Girls backpack and come home two weeks later with sprawling cleavage and a derelict boyfriend. On the positive side of this scandal, China's success in the gym has reportedly marked a baby boom across that country, each couple hoping its little athlete fetus won't be past its prime by the 2012 Games.

Golf, of course, is not an Olympic sport. Not yet anyway. If the consortium of governing bodies pushing to get golf into the Summer Games by 2016 needs material evidence in its presentation to the IOC, it could use last weekend's Barclay's Classic as Exhibit A.

The PGA Tour Playoffs lived up to its name, at least for a week, with an international hodgepodge of a threesome needing extra holes to decide the outcome. Standing on the podium at tournament's end were Fiji's Vijay Singh (gold); Sergio Garcia of Spain (silver); and out of nowhere, by way of California, American Kevin Sutherland (bronze).

It was genuinely great theater. Now, I'm not reversing course after a year of lampooning the Tour's playoff system, but if there was ever a day to flip-flop an opinion, it was Sunday -- National Waffle Day. It's true. Waffle Day commemorates the invention in 1869 of the waffle iron and waffle. Shortly thereafter came the invention of the hung-over short order cook and the gravelly-voiced, chain-smoking waitress. (Not true.)

The playoff system still needs serious tweaking, if not a complete overhaul. But the Tour could hardly have hoped for more than what it got Sunday. Start with the golf course. Give the Tour major props for finding Ridgewood Country Club, which itself was founded in 1890. They got around to golf about 40 years later when the great A.W. Tillinghast built three classic nines. A young Byron Nelson got his first big break when Ridgewood's head pro George Jacobus took a fancy to him at the Masters and hired him as an assistant pro. It was there that Nelson saw the Ryder Cup in technicolor for the first time when Ridgewood hosted the matches in 1935. Inspired by the red, white, and blue uniforms and golf bags, Nelson vowed to make the 1937 team, which he did, thanks in part to the first of his two Masters titles that same year.

Seventy years later, another golfer from the Metroplex made his own hay at Ridgewood. Hunter Mahan of Dallas lit up the composite course with a 9-under 62 in Thursday's opening round. But Mahan wouldn't break 70 the rest of the week, and 8-under would be the score to get the aforementioned medalists into the Playoff playoff Sunday afternoon.

Singh and Garcia served as the A-List actors. Sutherland won the audition over Kevin Streelman, who missed a birdie on 18 Sunday to join the playoff fun, to play the role of a young Anthony Edwards' Goose in Top Gun: good enough to be there, but clearly the character who'll die first.

Sutherland was ejected from the playoff when he failed to reach the green in three shots, leaving Singh and Garcia to take center stage. Arguably the two worst putters among the world's best players didn't look like it when it mattered most. Garcia rolled in a 27 footer for birdie on that first extra hole, then blew a kiss to the man he hopes will embrace him at next month's Ryder Cup, European captain Nick Faldo, in the CBS tower at 18. Garcia then kissed his second win of the season goodbye -- at least for the moment -- when Singh rolled in a birdie of his own from a foot closer to extend the festivities.

The second extra hole had an extra hole of its own, and Garcia found it. In a scene straight out of "Caddyshack," Garcia was given relief from what appeared to be an area of turf burrowed out by gophers. Alas, Carl Spackler wasn't there to bail or blast him out. And he certainly got no relief from Singh, who hit the par 5 in two with a near-perfect second shot and two-putted for birdie to win for the second time in a month and deny Garcia yet another title on the last hole of a significant event.

Okay, so the FedEx Cup still needs revamping, as evidenced by the fact that Tiger Woods -- who hasn't played since June -- is 15th in the points standings after the first playoff. (I haven't ruled out the Tour finding some way for him to still win this thing.) But great golf by elite players on a classic course can't hurt as the Tour tries to grow its postseason into greater prominence as the years go by.

Of course, if it's simply a matter of time before the PGA Tour Playoffs catch on, maybe they should get the Chinese Olympic officials to start writing -- or rewriting -- the FedEx Cup history. Or at least send it to summer camp.