You could not have scripted a better ending to the inaugural season. Atlanta Drive was down 3-0 to New York Golf Club walking to the 12th tee box, before running off three consecutive holes and winning four points across those holes to win Match 2 of the finals, 4-3 and the series, 2-0.

Atlanta Drive held on to their Hammers even as NYGC played theirs early, and then Atlanta started burning them in a hurry. Hammers at the 12th and 13th led to declines from NYGC as Atlanta got within one. Finally, on the 14th, NYGC couldn’t resist a third Hammer, and Billy Horschel made the putt of his life to win the hole and the SoFi Cup.

It was, without a doubt, the most memorable moment of the season.

We’ll dive into that more below as we look at five key takeaways from the Finals Series:

1. Best On Best

After an early run of one-sideded matches to start the season (winning teams won by a combined 25-3), the latter matches – and especially the two Finals matches, were close and strategically memorable (more on that below).

The biggest lead in either match was three (NYGC on Tuesday), and in both instances, Atlanta Drive scored two points in the last two holes to go from one down to one up.

It was this league at its very best. There were moments of electricity throughout the season, but nothing like what we got on Monday and Tuesday evening with the two best teams in the league.

MATCH GALLERY: Best Photos from Atlanta vs. New York Finals Series

2. Hammer Perfection

Atlanta Drive showed that while TGL is a game of skill in terms of hitting shots and making putts, it is also a game of strategy. By saving all three of its Hammers until the last four holes, they put pressure on NYGC coming down the stretch.

The epitome of this happened at the par-4 13th. Xander Schauffele hit his second shot into a bunker, and Justin Thomas had 147 yards to the pin. Atlanta threw the Hammer. The choice for NYGC? Decline and concede the point, or accept and hope Schauffele earned a tie. They chose the former and it did feel like Atlanta Drive stole an easy point. I overheard Cameron Young saying, "We might as well keep our lead" as they went to the final two holes.

It was perfect Hammer strategy. From a probability standpoint, NYGC likely would have been better off accepting that Hammer, but it's a difficult decision to make when the chips are down and the SoFi Cup is on the line.

3. Billy. Horschel.

I did not see it coming, but Horschel owned SoFi Center this year. He was not the best player in the league (that was Wyndham Clark in my opinion), nor was he even the best player on his own team for much of the season (Justin Thomas or Patrick Cantlay), but he was the soul of not only Atlanta Drive but, I would argue, the entire league.

His putt on No. 14 to win the hole and essentially the championship was perfect, no notes. A double breaker that he tore away from like Noah Lyles trying to get around the first turn before it even dropped? What a moment. What a player to meet that moment. Horschel is not the best golfer in the league, but he’s a perfect golfer for the league.

“I've always loved growing up as a kid playing baseball, other sports and having the moment being the one who has all the pressure and dictates how things are going to go,” said Horschel. "I've always enjoyed that. I've always for the most part thrived in that.”

4. Teamwork with sand

The most amusing moment of the night for me was when Thomas said after the match that he gave Horschel the line on his winning putt by finding a grain of sand from a putt he had on a previous hole. Ludicrous stuff, but also … it worked.

“I like finding the fall line, feel like I can do it decently well,” said Thomas. “I told Billy there was a piece of sand that I used for reference, and somehow that piece of sand was still there, and I hit mine a little harder than I wanted, and it obviously was high. So I was like, ‘Billy, here's the piece of sand, this is the fall line,’ and I was like, I'm just going from experience of what happened to me a couple holes ago.”

5. Competitive (obviously) but also fun

The Finals was, as expected, more intense than an already intense regular season. But the theme of this season had to be how much fun everyone in the league had with one another. Thomas summed that up well on Tuesday evening.

“I think we probably sound like a broken record, just not knowing what to expect, not just us on Atlanta Drive but just all the teams didn't know what to expect and how it would be,” said Thomas. “But yeah, it truly was a blast. It's obviously easier probably for us to say that than others …

“I didn't necessarily ever leave a match or a time where it was anything but exciting and fun and really enjoyed it. It's nice to be ending the season up here with the trophy and these guys.”

Star of the night

Who else? It is fitting that Horschel ends the year with the most Singles points of any player in the league. He won five points in four holes of Singles in the two Finals matches he played. That’s an unbelievable number that is fitting for somebody who has to be considered the star of these playoffs.

Kyle Porter wrote close to 3 million words about golf over 12 years for CBS Sports and covered 47 majors and five Ryder Cups in the process. He has written three books – Normal Sport 1, 2 and 3 – and built a newsletter of 15,000 golf fans at normalsport.com.