Tell you what, if David Maune holds out for another three weeks to win the 1999 Golf Masters he may well have to spend the bulk of his £10,000 winnings on a very lengthy stay at a health farm. We, of course, are entirely impartial in this competition, however we can't help but feel for David, whose Cremorne 1 have led for 14 of the last 15 weeks but just cannot shake off their challengers, no matter how many birdies they muster.
Last week, Roger Mullarkey's Twilight Zone halved the leaders' advantage to just over £60,000 but failed to keep the momentum going at the NEC Invitational, where Cremorne 1 outscored them by £10,500. Breathing space at last for the leaders? No. Pat Corby's Blackbird's 7, third last week and over £100,000 off the pace, are now circling menacingly overhead, having moved back up to second, a mere £62,120 short of Cremorne 1's total.
Of last week's top 10 line-ups, Blackbirds 7 were the joint highest earning team (with Geoff Burke's Tom Tom Toms, who rose from 10th to sixth), winning £93,333 at the NEC Invitational. Carlos Franco, who tied for seventh, was Pat's biggest contributor and Padraig Harrington and the ever-reliable Hal Sutton tied for 12th and 15th respectively.
For once, Colin Montgomerie let David and Roger down, winning just £12,000 for a share of 30th place, but worse still for the two managers is that he is not in the field for this week's European Masters.
David will at least be relieved to hear that two of Pat's big guns this year, Sutton and Chris Perry, are also taking the week off and won't be in action at the Air Canada Championship, week 27's second tournament.
Des Smyth, Chris DiMarco and Len Mattiace will be flying the flag for Cremorne 1 this week while Pat will be relying on good finishes from Franco, Willie Wood and Ian Garbutt to help further close the gap at the top. Meanwhile, Roger could do with a Greg Kraft victory on Sunday night because the only other player he has on duty in week 26 is Smyth, one of David's employees. Paul Sheehan, last year's winner, still fancies Pat Corby to succeed him as Golf Masters' champion, not least because he still has one transfer left to make in each of his top two teams. Pat may be tempted to take the plunge into the transfer market next week before our final bonus tournament of the year, the British Masters, or, of course, he may choose to leave well alone and stick with the seven who have got him this far. Paul has long since given up on his Bite Baby line-up giving him any chance of retaining his title, conceding that Darren Clarke's final-round collapse at the European Open all but signalled the end of his challenge. "I thought Clarke was going to make me a Golf Masters' legend there for a while, but it wasn't to be."
He has, though, picked up his first ever fourball as a consolation prize after Make Your Move were the only team to top the £200,000 earnings mark at the NEC Invitational. With a couple of transfers still to make on the team last week, he had a look at the field for the tournament and brought in Craig Parry and Carlos Franco, who went on to win over £106,000 between them. Winner Tiger Woods and Paul Lawrie, who tied for 21st, brought the team total to £224,833, giving them a comfortable winning margin over Peter Robinson's Bob 1.
With only 37 of our players in action in week 26 the average score was a meagre £41,936 (bringing the overall average to £1,684,345), with 776 teams winning not as much as a Golf Masters' penny. Things should pick up this week with the first two of our six remaining tournaments. Hang in there, David, Pat and Roger.
