"He was impactful from the very beginning," says the Tour's Zink. "Within a year it was pretty clear who would be the next commissioner."
Beman's departure was hastened by his disastrous attempt to ban the square grooves in Ping irons. One of Finchem's tasks was to negotiate a settlement for the ensuing lawsuit, which ultimately cost the Tour millions. That could have been an early lesson on the dangers of hubris, but upon becoming commissioner, on June 1, 1994, Finchem immediately set about reshaping the golf landscape.
Says Zink, "The Presidents Cup had been discussed before conceptually, but the execution, as far as getting it done, that was all Tim."
The inaugural Presidents Cup was played in September 1994, after 3 1/2 months of feverish preparation, and even the fiercest Finchem detractor has to concede that the competition has been a home run.
Less than two years after that first Presidents Cup, Tiger Woods turned pro, forever changing golf and the Tour.
Woods has certainly made Finchem's job easier, but he has also muddled the commissioner's legacy. Tom Pernice, the outspoken 17-year veteran, says flatly, "Tim Finchem is going to go down as one of the greatest commissioners in sports history, and he owes it all to Tiger Woods."
That's underrating what a ruthlessly effective behind-the-scenes warrior Finchem can be. He has repeatedly put down challenges to his authority with extreme prejudice. Only a couple of months into Finchem's tenure as commissioner, Norman floated the idea of a new world tour to be underwritten by media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
The big-money events would have poached the Tour's top players and badly devalued its schedule. In late '94 Finchem arranged an audience with Norman and the other elite players gathered at the Shark Shootout.
For this meeting the commissioner brought along a powerful wingman in Palmer.
"Their spin was that it was my deal, about me and for me," Norman said in a 2004 interview with Golf Digest. "I was tarnished tremendously, being branded as someone who was trying to hurt the game of golf."
Norman's idea died, at least for a few years. It was brought back to life by Finchem, of all people. In 1999 Finchem introduced the World Golf Championships, initially four annual tournaments to be played around the world. These global events were the cornerstones of a revamped schedule that came with the blockbuster four-year, $1 billion TV deal Finchem negotiated in the heady months after Woods's epic victory at the 1997 Masters.
In the early years the WGCs visited Spain, Argentina, Australia, Ireland and Japan, but over the last few seasons the events have become increasingly tethered to the U.S., especially after the vagabond World Cup was stripped of its WGC status in 2006.
The three remaining tournaments are for the foreseeable future anchored at unimaginative venues in such cosmopolitan destinations as Akron and Tucson. The WGC's Americanization has forced top international players to consolidate their schedules in the U.S., badly hurting their home tours.
"Finchem is either blind to it, or he simply doesn't care what kind of effect he has on the rest of the world," Norman tells SI. "The PGA Tour is such a powerhouse it has a global responsibility to the game, whether he likes it or not."
Finchem is candid that television is the primary reason the WGCs no longer have a global profile, as domestic ratings have tumbled whenever the tournaments were played overseas.
"We still export the game, just by TV," says Finchem. "That said, we would like to get back to where the tournaments move around. It simply wasn't available to us this time around because of the structure of our television agreements."
