And then there were nine. Yes, just nine tournaments and six weeks to go before we remove that £15,000 cheque from the Golf Masters' safe - if we can remember the combination - and hand it over to our 2000 champion. He won't thank us for saying it, but Colin Rutherford's chances of being the recipient of that prize are looking more than semi-reasonable.
Yet again, he has retained top spot on the overall leaderboard and, even though the team in second place has cut Glenmore Eagles 2's lead, Colin won't be unduly concerned - after all, Glenmore Eagles 5, his other contenders, was the team that did the cutting, moving from fifth to second in the process.
The two sets of Eagles are the first line-ups to pass the £3 million earning mark this year with Eagles 5 our highest-scoring top-ten team of the week. Colin Montgomerie's third-place finish at the British Masters contributed the bulk of their £191,500 earnings, but we reckon there'll be a particularly warm welcome for Raymond Russell in Lisburn should he ever choose to pay a visit to our leader's home town.
After the first 22 weeks of the competition, Russell, who features in both Eagles' line-ups, had won just £77,750. Two weeks and two top 10 finishes later (third at the Scandinavian Masters and 10th at the British Masters), well he's more than doubled his money, adding an unexpected, but much appreciated, £122,500 to the accounts of both teams in the space of a fortnight.
Statistics of that nature are probably enough to bring tears to the eyes of Fionn Murphy, who slipped from second to third this week. Sizzlechest's entire earnings for week 24 fell £7,500 short of Russell's winnings at Woburn - only four of his team played, two missed the cut and the two who earned anything of note, Steve Flesch and Tiger Woods, are also employed by Glenmore Eagles 2. A week to forget, then, for Fionn.
A week of mixed fortunes, too, for Joe Mooney of Castleknock in Dublin. The good news? One of his two entries in the competition, The Celtic Tiger, moved up from 15th to seventh place overall after picking up winnings of £129,250 at the weekend.
The bad news? His second team, The Seven Sockets, missed out on a £250,000 bonanza because . . . over to you Joe. "Because I transferred out Gary Orr AND Rocco Mediate in the last couple of weeks." And how did you feel when you saw them win our two tournaments on Sunday. "Raging. Raging. I'm never making a transfer again, ever - I'm going to stick with my starting line-up."
A broken man is Joe, but if The Celtic Tiger has a week 25 similar to the week 24 enjoyed by Patrick McEntee of Bettystown, Co Meath then the £196,167 gap between them and Glenmore Eagles 2 should narrow a tad.
Patrick's Winning Team is precisely that after four of his line-up - Orr, Per-Ulrik Johansson, Andrew Coltart and Patrik Sjoland - finished in the top ten at the British Masters, where one and a half times the regular prize money was on offer.
David Carter, Justin Rose and Keith Nolan brought the team total to £407,750 - a consolation polo shirt to Linda Kilbridge, our only other manager to top the £400,000 earning mark in week 24.
So then, time is running out for Colin Rutherford's challengers but - and it's a double your money "but" - inroads of significant proportions could be made into his lead by Sunday evening, if someone has a USPGA to remember (and picks up a few more bob at the North West of Ireland Open).
