Wayward Lads stay put on week of big changes

HIS LEAD might have been cut by just over €40,000 in week nine but Donal Coleman remains our leading manager, the first in this year’s competition to hold on to top spot for three weeks running. Behind him, though, there was yet another shake-up in the top 10, with Darragh Halpin, up from 10th to second, now Donal’s closest rival.

Darragh’s handsomely named Piger Tickelson was the 19th highest scoring team of the week, four of his line-up – Rhys Davies and Luke Donald at the Wales Open and Rickie Fowler and Ricky Barnes at the Memorial – finishing in the top three of their tournaments.

Donal’s Wayward Lads couldn’t quite match that performance, but they brought home more than respectable winnings from their weekend’s work, just over €200,000, with Donald and Barnes the leading scorers, followed by Stephen Gallacher who tied for fourth at the Celtic Manor.

Mark Morris (up from 17th to fifth), Claire Deasy (who rose from 18th to ninth) and Andy Osborne (up from 28th to 10th) were the new top 10 entrants, replacing John Hennigan, Andrew Collier and Paul Sheehan, third, fourth and seventh last week. Not one of the trio made it in to the top 3,000 on our weekly leaderboard, none breaking the €100,000 mark in winnings.

We reckon, though, that the manager who is entitled to feel most sympathy for himself after week nine’s tournaments is Noel McMahon. With both winners in his line-up – Graeme McDowell (Wales Open) and Justin Rose (The Memorial) – as well as Davies, Bo Van Pelt (who tied for third in Ohio) and Niclas Fasth (another top 10 finisher in Wales), Noel would have been forgiven for assuming he was a shoo-in for the weekly prize. He might have been too if KJ Choi and Fredrik Jacobson managed to do better than take a share of 52nd at The Memorial.

It is Ian Geoghegan, then, with weekly winnings just €4,700 shy of €400,000, who is bound for Druids Heath, his Scammers line-up finishing top of the pile. Our Ballybrack manager also profited from McDowell and Rose’s victories but it was the combined efforts of Fowler, runner-up to Rose, Robert Rock, who tied for fourth in Wales, Marcel Siem (seventh at the same tournament) and Andres Romero (who had a top 30 finish in Ohio), that clinched him a fourball.

The Scammers still have a bit of work to do before they trouble The Wayward Lads, but they made progress in week nine, rising from 3,529th in the competition to 688th overall. With three majors, offering double the regular prize money, and three bonus tournaments, with one and a half times the usual rewards, still to come they shouldn’t yet give up hope of swindling their way in to contention, but with over €600,000 to make up on the leaders they’d want to get a move on.

Alas for the Scammers, McDowell is taking the week off, but he’ll return for next week’s US Open. Good news, though, for the managers of Pádraig Harrington (the fourth most hired player in the competition) and Rory McIlroy (13th in the popularity stakes) – both will be in action at the St Jude Classic in Memphis. Our second counting tournament in week 10 is the Portuguese Open.