For a time, it was touch and go. But Padraig Harrington's gamble in missing out on last week's BMW Championship, which was won by Tiger Woods, didn't cost him a place in this week's Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta and the Dubliner, who secured the 30th and final qualifying spot, has headed back across the Atlantic for a tournament that is the conclusion to the PGA Tour's play-off series for the FedEx Cup.

While Woods, the world's number one, claimed his 60th tournament win on the US Tour and brought his career earnings to over $75 million, an almost inconsequential amount compared to the amount he earns in endorsements with his purported latest deal with Gatorade reputed to be for $100 million, Harrington has had a week at home to recharge the batteries having cited "fatigue" as the reason for bypassing Cog Hill.

And Harrington, just like the other 29 players who have made it to East Lake, will have to rest - whether they like it or not - ahead of the tournament, as excessive heat in recent weeks has ruined the greens at the exclusive club and forced tour officials to take the unprecedented step of abandoning Wednesday's scheduled pro-am and informing players that they are not allowed hit balls onto the greens during practice rounds.

Record heat in the Atlanta area in the past month has caused so much damage to the greens at East Lake that players have been told they can't set foot onto the greens until Thursday's first round, when the top-30 players on the FedEx points standings compete in the tour's showcase event. Temperatures in Georgia hit 90-plus degrees Fahrenheit for 28 days, including 10 straight days at 100 degrees or higher. The area also went 25 days without rain.

"All greens were impacted to varying degrees, and several greens are and will remain in poor conditions throughout the tournament," a statement issued to players said, while Henry Hughes, the chief of operations with the PGA Tour, added: "In two weeks, we went from very, very good to very, very bad (greens)." Harrington is, at least, familiar with East Lake. He finished 14th in the 2004 Tour Championship and was tied-seventh in the tournament in 2005. He didn't qualify to play last year.

The Tour Championship has a purse of $7 million, with $1.26 million to the winner. But there is also the little side issue of the FedEx Cup, currently headed by Woods, which has a $10 million bonus to the winner and which will be decided at East Lake.

However, only five players have a chance of winning that bonus, the biggest prize in sport. Woods is in pole position, while Steve Stricker, Phil Mickelson, Rory Sabbatini and KJ Choi are the other players who could win, if results go their way. "You just go play," said Woods, who will be paired with Stricker in the final group on Thursday at East Lake. "You try and win the golf tournament. As I've always said, winning takes care of everything, so you don't have to worry about it if you win."

Woods's two stroke win over Aaron Baddeley in the BMW Championship, following on from his runner-up finish to Mickelson in the previous week's Deutsche Bank, enabled him to leapfrog back to number one in the FedEx standings. It was Woods's sixth win on the US Tour this season, coming on top of his victories in the Buick Invitational, WGC-CA Championship, Wachovia Championship, Bridgestone Invitational and the US PGA. He has gone 1st-1st-2nd-1st in his last four outings, and his season's prize money has reached over $9.6 million.

If Woods's main aim is to surpass Jack Nicklaus's record haul of 18 major wins, which he currently trails by five, there is also the other target of attempting to better Sam Snead's record number of US Tour wins. Snead had 82 wins in his career, but was 38-years-old when he claimed his 60th. Woods is only 31.

And Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer are the only other players to have recorded 60 career wins on the PGA Tour. Of them, Nicklaus, at 36, was the youngest when reaching that milestones.

Woods, who has now won 10 times in the past 13 months, remarked after his win in Cog Hill - the fourth time he has won that event in his career - that even he is surprised by the speed he has reached different milestones. "I never ever would have dreamt that this could have happened this soon," he said after his 22-under 262 total shattered his own tournament record by five strokes. "I've been out here, what, 11 years, my 12th season, I believe. And to have this many wins . . . I never could have foreseen that. I've exceeded my own expectations, and it's been a lot of fun to enjoy that whole road, that whole process to get to 60." Incidentally, Woods has never won the Tour Championship, finishing runner-up on no fewer than three occasions.