Just when commissioner Tim Finchem and the suits at NBC were licking their chops and breathing one almighty sigh of relief, Phil Mickelson went and rained — no, poured — on their parade by withdrawing from this week’s BMW Championship in Chicago. In doing so, he not only made the point that he has, apparently, been desperate to make to Finchem for some time — that is, “I don’t need your playoffs, especially after you went ahead with your own plans and didn’t listen to mine” — but he also eliminated much of the excitement and anticipation that his win over Tiger Woods at last week’s Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston created. Indeed, if part of Mickelson’s plan had been to annoy Finchem, he couldn’t have picked a better time to do it.

The victory, Mickelson’s 32nd since 1991, took him to the top of the FedEx Cup standings with two tournaments to go, and helped breath life into a playoff series that some observers had — perhaps prematurely — already written off as dead.

Just look at the ratings. The first playoff tournament — the Barclays at Westchester, where Steve Stricker beat KJ Choi by two shots — got a reasonable 2.1 score that television executives couldn’t have been unhappy with, given Woods’s absence and Rory Sabbatini’s failure to say anything inappropriate. Labor Day’s Mickelson–Woods showdown got double that number, and interest surrounding the remainder of the season rose to a level that Finchem must have been praying for all year. Suddenly, the thrill of the contest was beginning to match the hype.

Not surprisingly, tournament director John Kaczkowski, and Finchem’s public relations warriors, communications executives, and spokespersons went into damage limitation mode yesterday, making light of Mickelson’s absence by saying that, while disappointing, it was understandable given his hectic schedule, and certainly not disastrous. They’re right, to a degree. Any tournament boasting Woods, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Adam Scott, and Sergio Garcia in its field will always draw a healthy crowd. Of course, a tournament featuring Woods and a bunch of introverted 36-handicappers would do pretty well, too. But the BMW tournament promised the prospect of Woods and Mickelson — the world’s best player and the man who has come closest to snatching that title away, albeit temporarily — slugging it out on Sunday for 9,000 FedEx points. It also promised the two the satisfaction of looking the other man squarely in the eye and beating him.

With Woods and Mickelson (and Els last week) all taking time out from the playoff tournaments, it has become clear that winning the FedEx Cup is not a priority. That shouldn’t surprise or disappoint Finchem, who couldn’t have expected his financially rewarding, but historically bereft, venture to take the place of the Majors. But he might have hoped his top attractions would not treat it with such disdain, and use it as a platform on which to air their grievances and get back at him for not carrying out their every whim.

Finchem treads a very fine line. On one side he has sponsors demanding more stars and top-10 players for their events. On the other, he has stars and top-10 players who are independent contractors and need a good reason to tee it up in another corporate-sponsored tournament and spend time away from their families. On yet another side, he has a viewing public who wants to see the best players play against each other more often — just not during the football season.

Putting Finchem’s dilemma and Mickelson’s no-show to one side, though, let’s not forget the BMW Championship still has 16 of the world’s top-20 players (Padraig Harrington is also sitting this one out, Retief Goosen finished 87th in the standings and didn’t qualify, and Niclas Fasth is not a tour member). Hosting the tournament for the 17th straight year is the revered Dubsdread Course at Cog Hill, designed by Dick Wilson and Joe Lee, and which opened in 1964.

Mickelson has never finished better than tied for 26th in 10 appearances here. One wonders if that might have been a factor in his decision to pull out. Woods, meanwhile, has won at Cog Hill three times and finished runner-up twice in the last 10 years. In third place in the FedEx standings, he will be itching to win again and leapfrog Mickelson. The game will then most definitely be on for Atlanta next week.