Not that we want to be putting any undue pressure on our current overall leader, Dermot Burke, but this time last year one David Maune led the competition, stretched his lead at the US Open and, come September, one David Maune found himself in possession of a £10,000 cheque.
The problem for our Portmarnock manager, though, is that even if the four members of Port A who have qualified for Pebble Beach fill the top four places, he won't shake off the attentions of our 1998 winner Paul Sheehan, who is now up to second overall. Paul's Plumb Bob and Dermot's Port A will be represented by the same four players in the season's second major, which offers double the regular Golf Masters' money - Colin Montgomerie, Darren Clarke, Mark Brooks and Kirk Triplett (unless they used up one of their two remaining transfers at the last minute). So, in the contest between our two leading challengers for this year's £15,000 first prize it will be a case of "as you were" on Sunday evening.
Shane Lee of Warrenpoint, who swapped places on the leaderboard with Paul this week, also has Montgomerie and Brooks in action, and so is utterly dependent on Padraig Harrington, his only other US Open contender, to keep Woody 1 going by matching Brooks' and Triplett's combined efforts. Fourth-placed Martin Watts, who is another Montgomerie and Triplett employer, needs Chris Perry to do something spectacular over the weekend while Brendan Reck, who only has Montgomerie in the field, will be hoping Brooks, Triplett, Clarke and company fail to find a fairway between them.
Shane, incidentally, probably feels he's due a change in fortune after he joined our "Those who fired players days before they won a tournament" Hall of Fame last week, when he gave up on Dennis Paulson and removed him from his Southern Star team (mercifully, not the same team Shane has in third place). You can't really blame him for losing patience with a player who had only won £65,750 in the first 14 weeks of the competition. Of the 318 managers who hired Paulson back in February another 31 had shown him the door by week 13, so their response to his play-off win over David Duval at the Buick Classic last weekend was probably entirely unpublishable.
Shane? The thoughts of Alan Kennedy (Killiney) and David Poole (Malahide) are with you, mainly because they experienced the same emotions when they heard of Steen Tinning's Wales Open success, the same Steen Tinning both men sacked last week. George Byrne of Co Wicklow is suffering a bit himself too this week after his brother Willie won his second fourball in a year. The two Golf Masters' veterans (in terms of experience, rather than age, we hasten to add) have . . . how do we put it . . . a rather spirited rivalry in the competition every year. Who's winning this year?
"I'm so far ahead it's embarrassing," revealed Willie. "I'm in the top 1,000 but his is nowhere to be seen. He made a few transfers recently but won't tell me who he brought in - need I say more?"
At least Willie promised to bring George to Tulfarris, for his fourball, for which he has Paulson, Ian Woosnam, Greg Norman, Philip Price, Mike Weir and Keith Nolan to thank - they won Dreamers 4 £294,500. But if Phil Mickelson or Darren Clarke wins the US Open George might be unavailable for selection, having left the country - they're the big guns in Willie's team.
