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Chris Condon/PGA TOUR

Phil Mickelson played a key role in The Presidents Cup, notching a 4-0-1 record at Harding Park.

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For highlights from Harding Park, click here.

I'm going to alter a line from one of my favorite movies and say that golf was the big winner this week (though charity, as Shooter McGavin said in Happy Gilmore, is too, but that's a story for a different day).

A couple of things happened in the last week to elevate golf to a place in the sports pages and on shows like SportsCenter that it doesn't often achieve this time of year -- not with colder weather fast approaching and the NFL in full swing. First, golf got into the Olympics. Second, the best three players in the world played like it in The Presidents Cup.

The latter wasn't necessarily good news for the International team, but the way this Cup was contested -- surprisingly close early, spectacular shot-making by the Big Three on the weekend -- created a lot of much-needed buzz.

The former means that the game, no matter what, will have a golden opportunity to expand globally even more. And there were some at the PGA TOUR, while supportive, who weren't exactly 100 percent confident that golf was getting in, either.

Now on to The Presidents Cup and some other news. -- Brian Wacker

Stock up

Tiger Woods: Captain Couples said he needed Woods to go 5-0 and that's exactly what he did. He might not have won a major this year, but the FedExCup, six victories and a Presidents Cup win are a pretty good alternative. If they gave MVPs this week, he'd be it. Steve Stricker: Mr. September turned into Mr. October, teaming with Woods to go a combined 4-0 the first three days of The Presidents Cup. Stricker lost his singles match, but it didn't matter -- he completely carried Woods with his putting in Saturday's Four-Ball. Ryo Ishikawa: A lot of people questioned Norman selecting Ishikawa as a Captain's Pick, but the Japanese teenager didn't disappoint. He and Y.E. Yang won two matches before running into the Woods-Stricker buzzsaw. Expect to see a lot of this team in the future.

Stock down

Camilo Villegas: There's not much you can say about Villegas other than he stunk up the joint, going 0-4-0 at Harding Park. Expectations this year were extremely high for the talented Colombian, but he just didn't live up for a myriad of reasons. Angel Cabrera: With just two top-10s since April, the Masters champ has been largely a non-factor since that playoff victory at Augusta, and that trend continued at Harding Park, where he went 1-3-0. He's a feast-or-famine guy and he and the Internationals starved last week. Lucas Glover: Was it just me, or did Glover look tired all week? You have to give him a lot of credit for honoring all his commitments after winning the U.S. Open in June, but a long (read: successful) year appeared to catch up with him by the time he got to San Francisco.

A Quick 18

Front Nine Back Nine Fred Couples knew what he was doing when he put Tiger Woods in the slot for the ninth of 12 Singles matches Sunday. He told assistant Jay Haas that Woods was going to clinch the Cup and that's exactly what he did. Woods can thank Stricker for his perfect record, especially in Saturday's Four-Balls, where Woods didn't make a birdie until the final hole of the match. Stricker, on the other hand, made eight of them. Couples was the perfect guy to captain this team. Woods, Mickelson and Stricker mesh well with a laid-back leader and Couples is enough of a contemporary that younger players like Anthony Kim and Sean O'Hair didn't tune him out. Vijay Singh had more points, but no one proved to be a tougher on the International side than Tim Clark. Greg Norman called him a modern-day Corey Pavin -- a bulldog with a lot of fight in him. Whether it was Justin Leonard's practical joke of downing five shots (of water as it turned out) after an early loss, or the poster in the team room of John Starks dunking on former Bull and unofficial team assistant Michael Jordan, U.S. team chemistry was terrific. Absolute class move by Singh to concede Lucas Glover's 7-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole Sunday to end their match all square. "He would have made it anyway," Singh said. But if he hadn't, it would have been tough for Glover to swallow as the only American to not score a point. This will sound like Monday Morning Backspinning, but Norman's decision to put Camilo Villegas, Adam Scott and Robert Allenby out as his first three Singles matches was highly questionable. Villegas was winless, Scott only had one point and Allenby has a balky putter. Speaking of Singh, he'll shut it down for the next five weeks, give his surgically repaired knee a rest and figure out what he needs to do for next year. Obviously, the 46-year-old has no plans of slowing down. That said, Norman could have put Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie and Bernhard Langer out there in their prime and it might not have mattered. That's how good the U.S. was with Woods, Mickelson and Stricker combining for a 13-1-1 record. The same can't be said for Kenny Perry, who played The Presidents Cup with a heavy heart after losing his mother, Mildred, to blood cancer. Perry will turn 50 next year and plans to play a more limited PGA TOUR schedule, along with some Champions Tour events. On the flip side of the Woods-Mickelson-Stricker dominance was the dismal 2-11-1 record by Angel Cabrera-Camilo Villegas- Adam Scott. Throw in Retief Goosen's 0-3-1 mark and the picture was pretty bleak for the International side. Jim Furyk won two matches for the U.S. this week, which is two more than TOUR wins he has since 2007. With 10 top-10s this year, Furyk will try to end that drought this week in Las Vegas at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. Once again, we saw how important it is to have the lead going into Sunday's Singles. No team has ever come back when trailing going into the final day at The Presidents Cup and that didn't change this year, either. With Woods, Mickelson and Stricker all closing out their season on a high note, there's going to be a lot of talk about those three come next year, especially given major championship venues of Pebble Beach, St. Andrews and Whistling Straits. Along with this being arguably the most impressive performance by a U.S. team in international team competition, it was easily Woods' best. In addition to going 5-0, he had a couple of highlight-reel moments Saturday and a dominating one Sunday. Tweet of the Week: "I won 5 matches though...Ping Pong matches, against Adam and Timmy haha, Golf was .500 for me 2-2-1. Camilo really into Nascar." -- Y.E. Yang (@Y_E_Yang) about 7:30 ET Sunday night. My question: Who knew Villegas was so into NASCAR? As far as teams go for the International side, the duo of Ryo Ishikawa and Y.E Yang might be one we're going to see for a long, long time. They were the Internationals' answer to Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker. Interesting question posed by gossip site TMZ.com on the heels of Woods become the first billion-dollar athlete. Their poll asks simply, who would you rather be, Woods, or Michael Jordan? Click here to vote, though to me that's a no-brainer right now.

The Forward Spin

It's back to the Fall Series, but this week's Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open will have more than guys just playing for a spot in the top 125 on the money list. First, there will be plenty of celebrity flesh-pressing going on thanks to J.T. Second, the field will get a boost thanks to Jim Furyk, Anthony Kim and Ryan Moore, among others. Speaking of that trio, there aren't a lot of people who would have predicted that Moore, who played his college golf at nearby UNLV, would be the only one with a win this year. Furyk hasn't been without opportunity with 10 top-10s, but that's a sort of dubious number to a guy like Furyk, who's probably a little tired of being asked about not winning since 2007. Kim, on the other hand, admitted that he needs to take some time off, but Las Vegas is unavoidable when you're 24 years old. Expect whoever wins this tournament to make a ton of birdies, which is usually what happens at TPC Summerlin.