Last autumn appearance for Valero Texas Open

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PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem held up his index finger during a visit to the press room at the 2006 Ryder Cup, which seemed a bit premature since the Americans had been getting trounced in recent matches.

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Justin Leonard won last year's Valero Texas Open.

"Valero Texas Open -- No. 1 in charitable giving this year," Finchem said to clarify.

When someone mentioned that he had rewarded tournament officials for their charity efforts by sticking them in the less-popular autumn, Finchem jokingly replied, "Why ruin a good thing?" before adding with a more serious tone that the event soon would move to the spring.

The Valero Texas Open starts on Thursday in San Antonio, its final autumn appearance before it leads off the TOUR's new Texas Swing next May.

It's a just reward for a tournament that never complained about being held in the same week as the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, or when it was moved to the Fall Series when the FedExCup came along.

The move gives the TOUR a three-week Texas Swing after THE PLAYERS Championship in May.

While the TOUR has not released its 2009 schedule yet, the Valero Texas Open will likely be followed by the HP Byron Nelson Championship in Irving, Texas, and the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial in Fort Worth.

The other Texas event, the Shell Houston Open, will be from April 2-5, the week before the Masters.

Because of how the calendar falls, the 2009 season starts a week later, with the winners-only Mercedes-Benz Championship at Kapalua from Jan. 8-11, followed by the Sony Open in Hawaii.

The Florida Swing also involved musical chairs. The Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens again will go first, followed by the World Golf Championships-CA Championship at Doral, which had anchored the Florida rotation. The Transitions Championship in Tampa will go third, with the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard in the fourth spot, two weeks before the Masters.

The rest of the FedExCup portion of the schedule looks similar to 2008, with the Buick Open the biggest exception. Instead of being held at the end of June, it will move to the first weekend in August, two weeks before the PGA Championship.

Depending on Tiger Woods' schedule when he returns next year, it will be hard to imagine him playing the Buick Open, Bridgestone Invitational and PGA Championship -- all of which he has won multiple times -- then playing all four PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup events, which again are scheduled to start two weeks after the PGA Championship.

Still to be determined is whether to build a week off into the Playoffs schedule. Finchem indicated that officials were contemplating both scenarios -- four straight playoff events or a week off during the playoffs -- before finalizing the schedule.

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Williams

CADDIE IN THE BOOTH
Instead of glaring at cameras, Steve Williams will be speaking in front of them.

The caddie for Tiger Woods will make his debut as a TV analyst during the Kiwi Challenge in his New Zealand homeland, which will feature Anthony Kim, Hunter Mahan, Brandt Snedeker and the only non-American, Adam Scott of Australia. They will play 36 holes, on Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnappers, with the winner of the stroke-play event receiving $1.5 million of the $2.6 million purse.

The tournament will be played from Oct. 27-28.

"This is my first experience at this," Williams said. "I'm doing this because the Kiwi Challenge will bring great exposure for New Zealand and give New Zealanders the opportunity to see four of the world's best players in one group. Seldom would we have four players of this quality at a tournament."

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Weir

PLAYOFF BEARD
Mike Weir sported a "playoff beard" at The Barclays in August, right about the time developers from EA's' "Tiger Woods PGA TOUR '09" showed up to capture his image for the video game.

The beard was gone a week later, and it didn't last long on the video game.

"He kind of wanted it to be more clean-cut," Travis Sailer, assistant designer on the game, told Canadian Press. "That's what he normally goes with. So we actually worked with him and worked with our modelers in the game and got it so that we wiped away his beard a little bit for him."

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MONEY MATTERS
Tiger Woods earned $5,775,000 in six tournaments this year. That's more than Jack Nicklaus made ($5,734,031) in his 594 starts on the PGA TOUR.

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DIVOTS
Greg Norman has appointed Frank Nobilo of New Zealand his assistant captain for the Presidents Cup next year in San Francisco. They played on two Presidents Cup teams together. ... Dustin Johnson led the field in driving distance at the Turning Stone Resort Championship last week, becoming the first player to win a PGA TOUR event with the longest driving average since Tiger Woods at Firestone CC in 2007.

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STAT
Including his FedExCup bonus, Vijay Singh made $15,165,163 over the final two months of the season.