The $525,000 prize he won was great, Fred Couples said.
A 5-under-par 66 in his last round of the season - "one of the best last rounds I've ever had in contention," he said - was very nice, too.But the best thing about his run-away, four-shot triumph in the rich, new World Championship, he said, was the quality of the opposition.
Following a victory, he said, "you look around to see who you beat, and it's Azinger and Langer and Faldo and Ballesteros and Norman and Purtzer.
"There's only 26 guys here," Couples said, "but they're the best in the world, and that makes it really special."
They also are men he will be facing in golf's major championships in 1992 - the Masters, U.S. and British Opens and the PGA.
The best season of Couples' career - three wins around the world, more than $1.7 in international golf winnings, and a streak that includes 13 finishes of sixth or better in his last 16 starts - makes him a prime contender for the game's great championships.
"Well, obviously, those are the ones you want to win," he said, "but my first tournament of the year is the Tournament of Champions, and that's the tournament I'm thinking of now.
"If, when we get to the majors and I'm playing good, well, I'll just try as hard as I can to do my best."
He said he learned a valuable lesson in mid-season when he took a five-week break from competition, a break that was followed immediately by his hot streak.
"The best thing I have going for me in golf is that I do what I want to do and don't do things I don't want to do," he said.
"Before the break, I was just playing mediocre and not doing anything and I wasn't liking it, so I just decided to get away for a while."
He came back, won both the B.C. Open and the St. Jude Classic in the United States, served as a key figure on the American Ryder Cup team and capped his season by beating a field of the best in the world.
Couples opened the final round Sunday with birdies on the first two holes, saved par with a 35-foot putt on the third, then made eagle-3 on the fifth after a 215-yard 3-iron shot came to rest only three feet from the flag.
He led by as many as five shots over the back nine until a meaningless bogey on the last hole. His 281 total on the Tryall Resort course was 3 under par and represented the only subpar total of the weather-plagued tournament.
Bernhard Langer, the German whose missed putt on the final hole of the final match cost Europe control of the Ryder Cup, took second in this event with a closing round of par-71 and a 285 total.
He won $295,000 from the total purse of $2.5 million and led the world money list at $2,185,358. Well over half of that amount, $1,295,000, has come in the last three weeks.
Paul Azinger had second in his pocket until he made double-bogey from waist-high rough on the 16th hole and Langer, in the same twosome, birdied the hole.
The three-shot swing put Azinger one behind Langer and he stayed there, finishing with a 72 and a 286 total.
"I pulled a 5-iron into the weeds - an inexcusable shot," Azinger said. But he took some consolation from a $190,000 prize.
Australians Greg Norman and Craig Parry tied for fourth at 287. The 5-foot-6 Parry matched par 71. Norman, attempting to avoid a victory shutout for the first full season of his 16-year career, shot 70.
Seve Ballesteros of Spain, Nick Faldo of England and American Tom Purtzer were next at 289. Ballesteros and Purtzer each had a 71 and Faldo had a 72.