Now that's more like it. After a thoroughly miserable week 10, when the average score for our teams was just over £50,000, week 11 proved to be much more profitable, thanks largely to the bonus money on offer at the International Open in England. The average score this time around was £105,296, with seven teams breaking the £400,000 barrier.
Six of those teams' managers are entitled to have more than a little sympathy for themselves after missing out on a trip to Mount Juliet despite returning such impressive scores. John Broderick, of Foxrock in Dublin, and Michael Cullen, of Gorey, Co Wexford, should feel particularly aggrieved having had the winners of both of week 11's tournaments in their teams, Darren Clarke at The Oxfordshire and John Cook at the Byron Nelson Classic in Texas.
It's hard to compete, though, with a line-up that had the top three at the International Open (where players won 11/2-times the regular Golf Masters' prize money) - Clarke, Santiago Luna and Thomas Bjorn - as well as Jose Maria Olazabal, who tied for 11th. Add in Carl Suneson's reward for a share of 33rd place and Anders Forsbrand and Tony Johnstone's contributions and you arrive at the grand total of £430,500, Blainroe 3's earnings for week 11. Richard Gelletlie, of Wicklow, was languishing in 2,073rd place before Blainroe 3's triumphant weekend; now he's 208th with an overall score of £1,235,502. Another weekend like that and he'll have leader Kevin Barry within his sights. Kevin, who has led the competition for the past four weeks, stretched his lead over Paul Sheehan to £58,027 this week.
Brian Murnaghan's Bargain Basement move up from sixth to third overall, with five managers jumping in to the top 10: Brendan Hill, Eoin McMahon, Jackie Connolly, Pat Casey and Peter Maher.
"There were great celebrations in our house when I made it on to the overall leaderboard for the first time in two years . . . and greater celebrations still when my father, Joe, joined me in the top 30 week nine," wrote our seventh placed manager, Eoin McMahon of Killiney, in a recent letter (Joe is 48th this week). "I'm wondering if this is the first time for a father and son to appear in the top 50 at the same time? We may not turn out to be as famous as Peter and Percy Alliss, or Ignacio and Antonio Garrido, but we're happy with our current run of form. (A pair of polo shirts would help remind us of our achievement)." (Okay then).
Well Eoin, to our knowledge it is the first time father and son have appeared on the overall leaderboard - or, at least, you're the first to inform us of the achievement. There is, however, another father-son Golf Masters' battle going on, but it's not quite as . . . how do we put this . . . competitive. "For the first time ever (and we have entered every year so far) I am slaughtering the other golf fanatic in the house, Noel Marsden Snr. And best of all, I keep reminding him. (If you have any spare polo shirts don't hesitate to send them this way)," wrote Noel Marsden Jnr of Athlone. (Notice the way the polo shirt requests also pop up in brackets at the end?).
And true enough - Junior's two teams are doing very nicely, in 447th and 663rd places, but Senior has a bit of work to do before he can put manners on the young fella . . . he's struggling in 12,631st place. We really should send only Noel Snr a shirt, so he'll have something to brag about, but we don't want to cause any more friction in the Marsden household, so we'll send two. Finally, congratulations to Rory Timlin, yet again. Not only did two of his teams make big moves up the overall leaderboard this week (Georgi Kinkladze and European Flavour), more importantly, his Underdogs, who are attempting to retain their 1997 Worst Golf Masters' Team title, finished joint bottom on the weekly list (with earnings of £500 - Keith Nolan ruined what would have been a perfect weekend) and have now slumped to 18,062th overall. A few more missed cuts (or, preferably, a few no-shows) and the Underdogs should catch up (down?) with Rory's fellow Galwegian Laura Nolan, who currently lies 18,076th and last. (We did notice, however, that a male voice entered Laura's team. Laura? Get yourself a good lawyer). There should be more big scores in week 12 of the competition because, for the second week running, there's bonus money up for grabs at the PGA Championship in Wentworth. The action in America takes place at the Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas. Because the PGA Championship does not finish until Monday, results - for which you dial 1550 844 430 (Republic of Ireland) or 0890 181 1001 (Northern Ireland and Britain) - will not be updated until Tuesday at 2.0.
