When the finale of the 2009 PGA Tour playoffs for the FedEx Cup begins Thursday at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, many of the questions about the success of the multimillion-dollar conclusion to the official golf season in the United States will have been answered. Yes, the No. 1 seed is Tiger Woods, and he is the odds-on favorite to win the Tour Championship. And, yes, he could just as easily lose the Cup if any of the remaining top five seeds -- Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson or Heath Slocum -- can pull off a victory at East Lake. If Woods and the rest of the top five and some of the top 10 have a bad week, then the winner of the FedEx Cup -- and the $10 million bonus that goes with it -- could even be won by John Senden, the Australian who was the last player to make the top 30, squeezing in when Brandt Snedeker made a triple bogey on the final hole at last week's BMW Championship. These intriguing questions are the best thing the FedEx Cup has going for it this week. Anything can happen, but it is not a crapshoot. Players control their destiny in the top five, and any of the 30 golfers in the field has a chance. The higher his seed, the better his chance. This is a measure of how far the playoffs have come in three years. Gone is the buzz-killing foregone conclusion -- played out last year when Vijay Singh won the first two events and the FedEx Cup simply by remaining vertical for the last two tournaments. There will be no repeat of the awkward televised trophy presentations in which PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem handed the 2008 FedEx cup to Singh while the Tour Championship was still in progress. The dreadful overnight television rating of 1.8, down more than 50 percent from 2007, prompted the format revisions that have produced what could be a big-bang finish. That golf is even being debated this late in September is another measure of the success of the playoffs. With the air -- and airtime -- filled with footballs and U.S. Open tennis and late-season baseball, golf has grabbed a fair portion of attention. Final-round television ratings were up for each of the first three events: the Barclays on CBS scored an overnight household rating/share of 3.7/8 percent, up 106 percent from 1.8/4 in 2008 and up 76 percent from a 2.1/5 in 2007; the Deutsche Bank Championship drew a 2.4/6 overnight rating on NBC, up 60 percent from a 1.5/3 last year, but down 40 percent from a 4.0/9 in '07. Some, including Woods, still question the fairness of a format that could have had one player winning the first three events and losing the FedEx Cup. It is a long shot, but if someone were to do that, he would still win $4.05 million for the first three victories, and the $3 million bonus for second place in the Cup, and whatever he took from the Tour Championship. Is almost $8 million enough to ease the injustice? The fact is, the marathon race that began with 125 participants at the Barclays four weeks and 216 holes ago at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City has come down to a sprint to the finish line. Measure the excitement of this against, say, what was going on in the season late in 2006, when there was no FedEx Cup. The Ryder Cup was being played in Ireland this week in 2006, and Europe was on its way to victory over the 12 U.S. players. The remainder of the PGA Tour players could choose to play for $4 million at the Texas Open, which was not a bad choice, but not exactly a ratings bonanza for sponsors. At present, there is some room for Woods & Co. on 'SportsCenter' and at the Monday morning water cooler. Granted, golf is not going to dominate any discussions in sports bars until the spring, when the Masters arrives. But with hockey popping up and N.B.A. practices on the horizon, golf is in the mix. Someone is going to have a putt for $10 million on Sunday in Atlanta. Should it come down to the final hole, as two of the three playoff tournaments have, that could very well stop some channel surfers in midclick. That would be another first for the playoffs, the golf playoffs, and another step toward success for a concept that is still evolving. 