Kevin Streelman's. (Getty Images)

Steve Elling CBS Sports has an interesting article about golf’s latest star Keven Streelman. Apparently Kevin was down on his luck “Considering that I was basically dead broke, with maybe $400 in the bank, yeah, it gets your attention,” said Streelman, a second-year player on the PGA Tour. “I was never a silver-spoon kid.”

For those who think that seven-figure paydays or bloated bonus checks don’t matter much to the deep-pocketed, modern-day PGA Tour professional, let Kevin Streelman set you straight.

Five years ago, as a struggling pro on the mini-tours, a million bucks seemed a million miles away.

Streelman has all but secured the tour’s second season-long sprint, the inaugural Kodak Challenge, and barring divine intervention in favor of his three closest pursuers at next week’s season finale at Disney World, he’ll be handed a check Sunday for $1 million.

Unlike the massively hyped FedEx Cup, in the coffers of the new Kodak construct, it’s winner-take-all.

“I’m definitely not counting my chickens yet,” Streelman said cautiously. Actually, he can count both his goose and its golden eggs. After last week’s rainout of the season’s penultimate event, the Viking Classic, Mother Nature, the tour brass and Kodak have combined to effectively inscribe his name on the biggest check of his career. Disney might be where miracles happen, but barring some outright freakish, outlandish developments, it’s not in the cards this time.

The FedEx is a season-long points race and the subject of much breathless propaganda. The Kodak is its less-heralded, baby step-brother. All year, players have been compiling scores at certain events on designated Kodak holes, with their best individual score that week counting toward an overall tally.

There were 30 holes picked over the arc of the season, and players were allowed to count their 18 best results. It’s a ringer score, really, and Streelman wrung the most out of his 18 tries to date with a 16-under total, two shots better than a trio of other players.

Two shots might as well be a dozen. Last week’s Viking cancellation, and the collective decision made this week by Kodak and the tour not to change the rules to compensate for the rainout, has left Streelman all but 10 feet tall and bulletproof. After some internal discussions on whether to add a second Kodak hole at Disney to make up for the lost opportunity, both parties elected not to tweak the rules.

It was bad for the mojo of the competition, but life-changing good news for Streelman. The dramatic smoke has cleared, and pretty soon, so will the check.

“As you probably know, we’re not real big on changing rules right in the middle of things,” said the tour’s Andy Pazder, who helped formulate the Kodak competition from scratch.

While the loss of a single chance to make up ground on Streelman at the Viking doesn’t sound like much over 29 weeks, it’s not quite that simple. The washed-out hole at the Viking was a 532-yard par-5, where birdies and eagles would likely have been plentiful.

With that red-number feeding frenzy removed from the equation, the last chance for anybody to make up ground will come at the Magnolia Course’s 17th, a brutally tough par-4 when played from the 485-yard back tee box.

Pazder said the tour had a “brief discussion” with Kodak about adding a second hole at Disney to make up for the Viking, but decided it would “compromise the integrity of the competition.”

“Kevin has worked hard for his edge,” Pazder said.

It’ll be almost impossible for him to blow it. For any of the three players to tie Streelman at Disney — which would force a sudden-death playoff for a pot larger than the tournament winner receives — they’d need to eagle the 17th over one of their three tournament rounds on the Mag Course.

Which is why the press missive issued by the tour this week was funnier than the last three Pixar movies combined:Streelman leads the Kodak Challenge at 16-under par, followed closely by Nathan Green, J.J. Henry and Bo Van Pelt at 14-under par.

The tour has made hole-by-hole data available to Disney officials since 1983, which gives us a monstrous sample size. Over that 27-year span, a total of four eagles have been made on the 17th hole over a staggering 6,291 tournament rounds. That’s 1,573-to-1 odds the wrong way. In fact, there have been nearly twice as many aces at the Mag’s par-3 third hole (seven) over the same period.

The last of the four eagles on 17 came in 1998 — more than a decade ago.

So, in case your nickname is Goofy or Dopey, the odds that ol’ Walt Disney himself will hand out the winner’s check are greater than making an eagle on the 17th, which 25 years ago ranked as the 36th-toughest hole over the entire PGA Tour season. Back then, it measured a mere 427 yards.

Streelman has already been touched by the fickle finger of fortune — and we do mean fortune. Last week marked just the third time since W.W. II that poor weather forced a PGA Tour event to be canceled without a makeup date.

There will be more tension generated on the Magic Kingdom’s spinning teacup ride than in the final week of the Kodak, which is a pity, really, because the competition is a terrific idea that got hosed by the deluge at Viking. Oddly, Pazder indicated that they might have two Kodak holes at Disney in 2010 as a means of ensuring more last-minute drama.

“I give the tour credit, they have tried to add some spice to the Fall Series,” Streelman said. “This was a neat, outside-the-box idea that grew exponentially over the year.”

Well, until the end. If Streelman makes a birdie on the 17th, that means Henry, Green or Van Pelt would need to ace the hole to tie. Mindful of the way the months-long series ended with a whimper, that’s exactly his intent.

“I’d really like to kind of close it out on my own,” he said.

http://www.cbssports.com/golf/story/12476108/only-formality-keeping-$1-million-out-of-streelmans-pocket