Week 20 of the Golf Masters and we're two-thirds of the way towards the climax of the competition at the British Masters and the Texas Open, our week 30 tournaments. There wasn't much money to be won for our managers at the Quad City Classic in Illinois last weekend, with only three of our players finishing in the top 10, but the World Invitational at Loch Lomond proved much more lucrative. Tom Lehman's victory at Loch Lomond added £100,000 to the scores of just over three per cent of our managers, while top five finishes for Ernie Els (6.4 per cent), Retief Goosen (9.3) and Greg Norman (7.4) proved even more popular - fourth-placed Pierre Fulke, however, appears in just one per cent of our teams.
Paul Maher, our manager of the week (see right), wins a four-ball at Mount Juliet after his Hole In One team won £227,000 at the World Invitational - his big winners were Lehman, Goosen, Peter O'Malley and Jesper Parnevik.
Edward Staunton retains his position at the top of the overall leaderboard, where Tony Murnaghan's Spiders From Mars are now his closest challengers. Tony, who also has teams in seventh and 22nd overall, narrowly missed out on his second trip to Mount Juliet this year, finishing just £3,500 behind Paul Maher - his Lamb Lies Down on Broadway team were week three's leading earners.
Moving from 26th to 19th on the overall leaderboard this week is that highly successful manager `No Name Given', whose team `No Team Name' has won £2,219,158 to date. Now, we have to admit that the scenario that gives the Golf Masters team many a sleepless night is one where No Name Given wins the overall prize. We asked the powers-that-be, politely, whether or not we could keep the £10,000 if this situation arose, but the response was quite rude and unprintable. So, we would appeal to all those No Name Givens out there to re-dial the number they first used to enter their teams and this time, leave a name, address and phone number.
Mr No Name Given of Gorey, Co Wexford made it to 18th on the week 19 leaderboard with his team `Skill Not Luck'. However, having forgotten to give his real name, he was unable to boast of success to his friends.
"It appears I omitted my name when I submitted my team Skill Not Luck - as a result no one will believe I have appeared at number 18 on the weekly leaderboard. Being a 23 (and rising) handicapper, any golfing abilities or knowledge I have are held in serious doubt by my friends - `he knows a lot of rules' is the best I get," wrote our despondent manager.
"If, perhaps, with the help of your renowned generosity, I could flaunt myself locally wearing a Golf Masters polo shirt, people would be convinced of my competence and impressed by your wonderful competition," he added (the last bit clinched the polo shirt). "Hoping to meet you at the 19th (where I shall buy you a large or even an XL one), Tony Stephens." So, that's TONY STEPHENS, should any of his doubting friends be reading this. Johnny Rafferty and Patrick Daly, pupils at Mullagh National School in Loughrea, Co Galway, also win polo shirts, mainly because we're a bit worried about the reception they will receive from their teacher when they return to school in September.
"Our teacher, Mr Sean Glynn, entered 10 teams in the Golf Masters competition. He divided the teams among fifth and sixth-class pupils in our school. Every Thursday we put the scores in to a spreadsheet in our computer. The teams are not doing very well, but we still enjoy it," they said in their recent letter to HQ.
Johnny and Patrick sent us the highly impressive print-outs of their teams' less-than-impressive scores to date and then came up with the team they wished their teacher HAD entered. "This team would have earned £2,233,378 up to week 14, if anyone had been smart enough to pick them. Our teacher wasn't - none of his teams was on the leaderboard after week 14," they complained. Ooops. They really should have added "off the record" to that comment. Perhaps teacher-pupil relations will improve if one of Mr Glynn's players win £200,000 at the British Open, week 21's tournament.
