Antislice cut above rest for Connors

THREE TOURNAMENTS down, just the 18 to go, and again Noel Connors leads the way with his Antislice line-up, China Open runner-up Nicolas Colsaerts his leading performer last week. Peter Hanson brought in another 14 points for his top 20 finish, only Bubba Watson having won his managers more in our opening three weeks.

The rest of Noel’s team, though, could only pick up eight points, Shane Lowry, Ian Poulter, Simon Dyson and Jeev Milkha Singh all finishing off the pace in China, but they did at least make the cut – unlike the 37 players who cost their bosses two points.

In all, 264 of our players are on zero or minus points, Paul Casey, Jose Maria Olazabal and Mike Weir “leading” the way on minus four. It’s as well, then, there are unlimited transfers this year, otherwise you could be stuck with players either out of sorts or out of action.

Noel, though, has been choosing wisely so far – he and Gavin Doyle from Clontarf both passing the 400 points mark in week three, which is more than reasonable going. Gavin also had Colsaerts and Hanson on board, Francesco Molinari’s share of sixth helping him close the gap on Noel.

Brian FitzPatrick and Gillian McLoughlin were two of the managers to benefit from Branden Grace’s China Open triumph, the South African’s third European Tour success of the year – giving us our second tie at the top of the weekly leaderboard in as many weeks.

And, just like last week, the managers had identical tournament place points and best round points, so, again, we had to use our last resort rule – “if a tie still exists, the prize will be awarded to the team that was entered into the competition earliest” – to come up with a winner.

It is Brian, then, a resident of Rochestown, Co Cork, who takes our goodie bag of golf merchandise, Colsaerts, Molinari, George Coetzee and Hanson his top earners after Grace, with only Dyson finishing outside the top 20.

He also moves into our overall top 30, which means at this rather early stage, Fitzer’s 6-Ball can be considered contenders.

Remember, all the information you need about the competition, including your team's week by week progress, can be found on our website: irishtimes.com/fantasygolf.

That’s where you’ll find the competition schedule too, this week’s counting tournament the Ballantine’s Championship in South Korea. It’s just a category one event, like next week’s Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, but after that is the Players Championship, where you’ll be able to win double the regular points.

And looking at some of the scores on our list, there are more than a few managers who could do with all the bonus points they can muster!