By RON KROICHICK, San Francisco Chronicle

As the PGA Tour season officially ends outside Orlando, there remains no debate about the story of the year. Not when Tiger Woods, while nursing torn knee ligaments and a stress fracture in his left leg, wins a riveting U.S. Open in a 19-hole playoff against Rocco Mediate.

Fred Funk has won two tournaments and nearly $1.8 million this year on the Champions Tour. He hangs out with players his age, navigates courses of realistic dimensions and begins each event without worrying about missing the cut -- because there is no cut.

Paula Creamer was 16, a rising junior golfer with grand ambitions. She had grown up in Pleasanton, Calif. (before moving to Florida at 14) and was attending the Solheim Cup in September 2002. During one practice round, Creamer and some other members of the Junior Solheim Cup team hooked up with Hall of Famer Juli Inkster, another Northern Californian, on the 18th hole.

Parting thoughts from the Ryder Cup, where the U.S. might want to install Boo Weekley as its perpetual mascot:-- Paul Azinger made all the right moves in his role as U.S. captain. He kept his players loose, set up Valhalla to encourage birdies and helped the Americans hoist the cup for the first time in nine years.

LOUISVILLE -- It required no grand insight to identify the most valuable state in this 37th Ryder Cup. Kentucky not only provided vocal and highly partisan galleries, but the two U.S. players with roots in the Bluegrass State, Kenny Perry and J.B. Holmes, sparkled on the course.

Europe has won three consecutive Ryder Cups and five of the past six dating to 1995. So The San Francisco Chronicle asked two detached observers, Ken Venturi and Vijay Singh, why they think the Europeans have dominated the Americans in recent years.

The images from Ireland in 2006 offered a vivid illustration of the vast difference between Ryder Cup glory and defeat. There stood the Europeans on a K Club balcony, smiling and laughing and joyously drenching each other in champagne. And there sat the Americans alongside the edge of one green, raising their arms in frustration as another disobedient putt slid past the hole.

This second edition of the PGA Tour playoffs was a dicey proposition from the start, with Tiger Woods resting his surgically reconstructed knee and Phil Mickelson's game drifting into its customary late-summer slumber.

The final LPGA major of the year, the Women's British Open, began Thursday in Sunningdale, England. It would make for a terrific storyline if Annika Sorenstam can resurrect her old magic: An all-time great player, making one last, emotional start in a major championship, walks away with the trophy.Of course, this depends on your definition of "last."

There was a time, not long ago, when this column repeatedly and vigorously defended Michelle Wie's decision to play in an occasional PGA Tour event. If Wie thought she would improve her game by competing against men, and tournaments extended her an invitation, then more power to her. But is this really the right time?