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Lee Westwood departed the Tour Championship defiantly stating he would be ready for the Ryder Cup despite finishing dead last in the 30-man field.

Not only that, the 39-year-old who was 15 over par at East Lake, insisted he was readying himself to be in prime shape to play all five sessions against the USA.

Westwood has only missed one sequence of matches in an unbroken Ryder Cup career that stretches back to 1997.

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Since their inception in 2007 the PGA Tour play-offs have grown far stronger and more appealing.

When Tiger Woods became the inaugural FedEx Cup champion there was little drama. Woods ran away with the season ending Tour Championship and the $10m (£6.2m) bonus jackpot despite not even entering the first event in the play-off series.

A year later, Vijay Singh merely needed to remain upright at the closing tournament to take the abundant spoils.

Woods won again in 2009 thanks to a runner-up finish to Phil Mickelson in the grand finale and a year later a requisite par at the last was enough for to give Jim Furyk the biggest cheque in golf.

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As 2012 began there was no doubting the most dominant golfer in the world. Yani Tseng had the kind of grip on the LPGA Tour that Tiger Woods used to enjoy in the men's game.

She was just 22 years old and the Taiwanese player could already boast five major titles. Tseng was the youngest player, male or female, to have won so many of the biggest tournaments in the sport.

Two of them came in 2011 as she successfully defended her Ricoh Women's British Open title and with four tournaments to spare.

There was no stopping the diminutive Tseng who began this year in a similar vein with three more Tour victories before March was over.

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Rory McIlroy's latest win, his third from his last four outings during a sensational month in the United States, confirms him as Europe's greatest young talent since the emergence of Severiano Ballesteros nearly four decades ago.

But for the contrived reset rules in the PGA Tour's play-off series McIlroy would surely have already sewn up the $10million FedEx Cup thanks to his back-to-back victories in Boston and Indianapolis.

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Steve Stricker was the last name announced as the American wildcard picks were revealed but he would have been top of the list in the mind of skipper Davis Love III.

The 45-year-old has not enjoyed the most spectacular of years on the PGA Tour but has been steady enough to retain a place in the world's top ten.

Stricker is a former student at the University of Illinois which will sit well with the Medinah crowds, he is a very dependable putter and a great team man.

Above all of that he is a ready made partner for Tiger Woods.

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