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People sometimes wonder why Rory McIlroy is so often tabbed as the successor to Tiger Woods' soon-to-be-vacant (if not already empty) golf throne. He goes long stretches between wins. He often wanders the desert looking for an even average putting stroke. He does not lust for the kill in the same way Tiger used to.

McIlroy is genteel off the course and thoughtful in press conferences and with the media. He is in many ways the anti-Tiger. His backdoor top 10s can lull even the most avid consumer of golf to sleep, and his detached attitude rubs some the wrong way. He is aggressively cocky and genuinely humble at the same time. It seems impossible, and I think some people dislike him for it.

These are all valid points people will use for why you should consider someone other than the Ulsterman next in line as the best in this sport of kings. Or at the very least why you should root for someone other than him.

Of course then he goes out and plays the last 50 holes of the Tour Championship in 15 under par with $11.5 million on the line and one of the few titles that has eluded him just outside his grasp. He goes and holes out on the 16th hole for eagle, birdies No. 18, shoots a 30 on the back nine with the season at stake and takes down two Americans in a four-hole playoff, swiping a $10 million bonus check from another one.

He goes out and reminds us that for all the guile Jordan Spieth displays and all the power Jason Day possesses and all the dexterity Dustin Johnson exudes, there is but one golfer in the world who glides along that high wire between the surreal ether where only the sport's legends exist and the stark reality that all other PGA Tour golfers call home.

He is the king. And when you come at him, you best not miss.

Everybody did miss on Sunday at East Lake as McIlroy took home his first Tour Championship and FedEx Cup trophy with a 64 in his final round to get into that sudden death playoff with Kevin Chappell and Ryan Moore. Johnson missed badly by shooting a 3-over 73 to put himself in a precarious position where either Chappell or Moore had to win the playoff for Johnson to win the FedEx Cup and a cool $10 million.

Chappell missed on the first playoff hole with a par after Moore and McIlroy made birdie. Let's stop for a moment right there, though, because we need to talk about that first birdie McIlroy made on the first playoff hole, the 18th at East Lake.

After pumping one 357 yards off the tee, McIlroy had 211 to the pin. He thumped it in a way that once made Geoff Ogilvy say Rory was even more pure than Tiger himself. Then McIlroy pulled off a club twirl that brought those of us following along on Twitter to our knees. More money than most of us will ever make in our lives awaited the other end of his Nike RZN golf ball, and he flipped his club like he was shooting a commercial with a swoosh. It was the non-major championship moment of the year.

Of course, because he's Rory McIlroy and not Tiger Woods, he missed the putt. Onto the next one.

Two straight pars were made by Moore and McIlroy after Chappell was eliminated and while Johnson held onto his kid in the clubhouse as he waited to learn his fate. Would he make $10 million for winning the FedEx Cup (if Moore won the Tour Championship playoff) or $3 million for finishing second (if McIlroy took it)?

McIlroy blistered his drive on the fourth playoff hole, No. 16, which is where some two hours earlier his final kick had begun with a hole-out eagle from 137 yards away. His ball waved at Moore's on its way to the green, and I believe it even tossed a bag of peanuts and perhaps a ginger ale down. McIlroy, as he often does, was playing a different game than one of the hottest American golfers alive.

Moore hit a broke second shot, chipped off the putting surface (badly) and left himself nearly 20 feet for par. He buried it because why not. That meant McIlroy would need to make his 15-footer for the win. For $11.5 million. He'd already missed a seven-footer and a 17-footer for that same amount.

A 15-footer would be the longest made putt for McIlroy on the week.

Then he did that thing we have seen so often from the most talented player in the world. He took the moment in his hands and shaped it into what he wanted you to remember. He owned it. He leaned into the tension in a way only people who don't consider money an object to be obtained anymore can do. Then he delivered it back, all hand-wrapped and glittery with one of the shots of the year. A 15-foot putt for a check with more zeroes than I care to think about that never left the center of the cup.

"It was incredible," McIlroy told NBC. "As I said at the start of the day, all I wanted to do was concentrate on winning this, the Tour Championship. I couldn't control what anyone else did. I just wanted to come out here and play a really good round of golf. I was somehow able to tie it up in regulation. ... I just wanted to go out here and play the way I've been playing. I've played really well this week and feel like my game is coming together at the right time. Two wins in the last three feels pretty nice."

It was the same moment we saw at the 2014 Open Championship. The same moment we saw at the 2016 Irish Open. Hell, the same type of moment we saw earlier on No. 18 from 211 yards away.

Rory lives for these moments, and it's why he's so intoxicating as an athlete. It's why he said last year in his pre-Tour Championship press conference that money doesn't really matter. It'a all about history for him.

It's why, even when he misses major cuts and four-putts and ejects from tournaments in the most grotesque ways possible, he's still The One. He's still the heir. A "lost season" in which he won twice and took home the FedEx Cup is proof of that. It's all about majors when it comes to McIlroy's legacy, but there are other notable accomplishments even if McIlroy doesn't care about them as much.

He's the only golfer with four FedEx Cup Playoff wins. He's the only golfer in the last 30 years outside of Woods and Phil Mickelson to win at least 13 times before turning 28. He's the only golfer in the modern era to win at least three majors by the age of 25 (Jack Nicklaus and Woods are the other two).

Earlier this year, McIlroy talked about how one of the few accomplishments from his resume was a FedEx Cup trophy. Now only one remains: A tournament 147 miles east of the one he won on Sunday in Atlanta. Augusta National. The Masters. A green jacket. The career Grand Slam. It it titillatingly close. It seems a foregone conclusion, but it certainly is not. Only Nicklaus, Woods, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Gene Sarazen have ever turned the trick. If McIlroy does it, he will certainly go down as one of the 10 best to ever play.

Unfortunately, we will have to wait nearly seven months to see if he can do it. Thankfully, McIlroy gave us plenty to think about between now and then. On a day that threatened to get lost between the start of the NFL season and next week's Ryder Cup festivities, McIlroy reminded us that he's the most exciting golfer on the planet. That he can elevate a sport that drowns late in the calendar.

It is not just that he wins. It's more about how he wins. With style and panache. With club twirls and roars. With missiles off the tee and long irons so pure they make swing instructors weep. He is not always the best in show in this traveling circus of a sport. But when he is, it is the greatest spectacle around.