Having A keen eye for golfing potential, as we do, here at Golf Masters' HQ, we're going to stick our necks out and make a bold prediction: David Duval has a future in the game.
His recent past isn't half bad either: played two, won two in the competition so far (the Players' Championship and last weekend's BellSouth Classic). And, as they say, you can't do much better than that.
Already he's earned more than Darren Clarke, Colin Montgomerie, Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Jose Maria Olazabal, Lee Janzen and Thomas Bjorn combined - and between them they cost £34.1 million.
All of which leaves the 1,232 managers who benefited from both his wins well pleased with Golf Masters' life so far. Twelve more transferred him into their teams in time for the BellSouth Classic, most replacing Montgomerie (also valued at £5.5 million) with the American. Montgomerie won £1,500, Duval won £100,000. Mind you, if the Scot finally breaks his duck in the Majors at Augusta this week that move won't seem quite as shrewd.
Not surprisingly this week's four-ball winner, Willie Byrne, of Bray, Co Wicklow, had Duval in his line-up - the difference between him and the player's other 1,243 managers is that he also had Stewart Cink (second), John Huston (joint third) and Len Mattiace, who took a share of 30th. In all, these four Mountainy Men won £256,250, almost £30,000 clear of second-placed Eoin O'Donnell.
The win makes up for Willie's disappointment three years ago when he thought he was Mount Juliet bound after his team won over £500,000 at the US Open. But then he opened his paper on the Thursday to discover Mary Horkan had pipped him to the prize. "I thought that time: `If I don't win it this week I never will'," said Willie. "I couldn't believe it when I saw the leader-board."
As if that wasn't bad enough, a year later Willie's brother George won a four-ball. "At least he brought me with him. I can remember him in his Golf Masters' polo shirt. Do I. . ." Yep, you get a 1999 Golf Masters' shirt. All Willie, a regular at Wicklow Golf Club, needs now is the US Masters' winner to put him in contention for the big prize. Who's his money on? "I have a sneaky feeling for Phil Mickelson, so I might transfer him into a couple of my teams." We'll watch with interest.
Amazingly enough we have new joint leaders at the top of the overall leader-board - Sean Eacrett of Dublin and. . . Sean Eacrett of Dublin. "I suppose if I win I'll just have to share the prize with myself," he said, when we contacted him earlier this week. Actually the two line-ups are identical - Sean thought his registration of the first team hadn't worked so entered the same seven players again. Of the seven his big earners so far are Duval, Alex Cejka and Greg Kraft with Chris DiMarco and Bob May also having a good start to the Golf Masters' season.
The average score in week five was just £26,680, even lower than week three's average, which we thought was as low as it would get. Over 9,000 teams won less than £5,000 at the BellSouth with 2,759 scoring nothing at all. The overall average score to date is £223,313, not much more than the winner of the US Masters' will collect on Sunday evening. If Duval leaves Augusta with a nice new green jacket then we will make another bold prediction: he will retain his tour card for next season. No flies on us.
