T.J's Take: Behold the Incredible inevitables

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There are several ways to define success on the PGA TOUR. Golf is a sport where you're bound to fail more than succeed.

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For most, success if keeping playing privileges for the following season, for others, it's qualifying to play in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, for some, it's winning an event -- the ultimate.

So far in 2008, nine players have earned their first TOUR win: Brian Gay, Mayakoba Golf Classic; Greg Kraft, Puerto Rico Open presented by Banco Popular; Andres Romero, Zurich Classic of New Orleans; Johnson Wagner, Shell Houston Open; Anthony Kim, Wachovia Championship and AT&T National; Ryuji Imada, AT&T Classic; Richard S. Johnson, U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee; Chez Reavie, RBC Canadian Open; and Camilo Villegas, BMW Championship.

Call them the fine nine, but incredibly, only four in that group -- Romero, Imada, Kim and Villegas -- will be at this week's THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola.

Fitting, if you ask me.

That foursome is what I like to think of as the "incredible inevitables." OK, I realize "inevitables" isn't a word, the point I'm making is that it was inevitable for these guys to win. Let's take a closer look at this quartet.

Ryuji Imada
The 31-year-old from Japan is a magician around the greens and his win was a long time coming, overdue even. Not to mention, he did it in style. One year after losing to Zach Johnson in a playoff at the AT&T Classic, Imada was in a playoff again this year.

This time, Imada was head-to-head against a man who proved to be one of the best players this season in Kenny Perry. Rather than buckle under the pressure and allow the negative thoughts of 2007 to creep into his head, Imada kept it together and won. It followed up a distant second-place finish to Tiger Woods earlier in the year at the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines.

Along with those finishes, Imada also tied for fifth in the Northern Trust Open and tied for second at the PODS Championship. He performs well on some of the toughest tracks the TOUR has to offer. Imada's win at the AT&T Classic was a long time coming and you should expect more to come.

Is there a major championship win in his future? Don't count him out. It seems the harder the course, the better he plays. And as for a FedExCup, Imada spent most of 2008 in the top-10 of the standings.

Andres Romero
He might be new to golf fans in the U.S., but on the world stage, the young Argentine had his coming out party in the 2007 Open Championship at Carnoustie. The then 26-year-old made an ungodly 10 birdies in the final round and actually had a two-shot lead at one point. But, with a double-bogey, bogey finish, Romero had to settle for third.

That had to be scarring, right? Not so for Romero. The resilient young man earned his first professional win just one week later in the Deutsche Bank Players Championship of Europe on the European Tour. Not bad.

The high Open Championship finish earned Romero a TOUR card for 2008 and along with the win in New Orleans, he's enjoyed three other top-10s and has amassed nearly $2 million in earnings.

What's Romero's "major" prognosis? Pretty darn good if you ask me. In eight majors played, the kid has missed the cut just twice with four top-10s. We'll be talking about him for years to come. He should also be a staple in The Playoffs. Shoot, he qualified for all four events in just his rookie season.

Anthony Kim
Something about this guy just screams "superstar." He's charismatic, he's exciting, he's flashy (the bling-BLANG belt buckles), he's cocky (in a good way) and -- for the love of God -- he's only 23!

Take a poll of TOUR players and I'll bet everything that they'll say the two hardest courses among regular TOUR events are Quail Hollow Golf Club and Congressional.

What do those two places have in common? Kim won at both tracks this season. While those were his shining moments, that's not even close to all he's done. The second-year TOUR player also has three other top-3 finishes, plus a tie for seventh at Royal Birkdale in his first Open Championship.

If anyone hadn't been paying attention to Kim prior to last week's Ryder Cup, they've got to be enamored with him now. In his Sunday's Singles match against Sergio Garcia, Kim evidently didn't get the memo that he was supposed to be nervous in his first Ryder Cup. He absolutely demolished Garcia, closing him out 5 and 4 to set the tone for the first U.S. win in nine years.

With each of Kim's confident strides at Valhalla on Sunday, you could hear "Cha-ching! Cha-ching!" as in the sound of endorsement money that will surely be coming his way.

His outlook for winning a major in the years to come? Brighter than the sun. This guy will absolutely be a multiple major winner. We're not going to call him a soon-to-be Tiger tamer just yet, but I see the two doing battles sooner rather than later.

Kim starts THE TOUR Championship at No. 6 in the Playoff standings. I've got to think that's an indication of the consistency we can expect down the road. If he's going to win multiple majors, I think it's safe to pencil him in for multiple FedExCups too.

Camilo Villegas
Until a few weeks ago, this guy had it all -- except a TOUR win. Scratch that off the list.

I think it's fair to say that Villegas is the oldest 26-year-old on the TOUR. He just seems to be in the hunt more often than not, but for a long time he had a hard time closing the deal.

That all changed in, of all places, the Playoffs. With a 68 in the final round at Bellerive, Villegas won the BMW Championship and sent his star status through the roof. He's already a hero back home in Colombia, but now it's bigger and better with the win.

Villegas is such a terrific player for the TOUR to have. He's a young gun who, like Kim, has incredible personality. He's not your father's conservative and dull TOUR player with the round belly. Instead, Villegas is one of the few people in the world who can make hot-pink clothing look macho! You've got to play good golf to where the clothes this guy wears!

I think Villegas' win at the BMW Championship will open the floodgates. It wasn't just any win; it was a Playoff win that catapulted him to No. 2 in the standings. That's a huge confidence boost for a third-year player. Will he win the FedExCup in the coming years? I don't know. But I do know he'll contend.

And as for majors? Villegas is going to get at least one. He had top-10s at both the U.S. Open and the Open Championship this year.

While there's been a significant drop-off in the interest of golf with the absence of Tiger Woods, players like Imada, Romero, Kim and Villegas make you realize that things might not be so grim after all.