Funny, last week we intended cheering up Darren Clarke's 2,660 managers with some good news - namely his plans to play in most of our tournaments over the next four months, starting with the Spanish Open - but we were so busy tipping Michael Delaney for 2001 Golf Masters' glory that it went right out of our heads.
Just as well really, after all we put the kibosh on Michael's hopes of retaining the overall lead for a third successive week by drawing attention to the fine form of "Sally's Girl" - he, naturally, plummeted to fourth this week with Kevin Farrell of Swords taking over at the top - so if we'd mentioned Clarke as well we might have been blamed for his altercation with that bush.
All the same, even without our guidance, another 121 managers transferred Clarke into their teams on the eve of the Spanish Open and must have been making merry on hearing that their new recruit was on course for victory in Valencia, or at worst a top-three finish. Until his 10 at the 15th, that is.
To quantify it in Golf Masters' monetary terms: If he'd matched either of his first two rounds Clarke would have won his managers £100,000 and not the £9,250 he finished up with. So, if any of them falls £90,750 short of winning the competition in September they'll remember that bush in their nightmares.
Hearty congratulations to the 68 managers who were sufficiently impressed by Robert Karlsson's 12th place finish at the Moroccan Open in week seven to hire him in time for his win in to Spain (he features in 2,456 teams in all). Only one manager fired him after Morocco - Desmond (Tramore)? Two words: "polo" and "shirt".
No polo shirts for the managers who rushed to hire Ian Poulter AFTER he won in Morocco, only to see him miss the cut in Spain. Why? Because there were 74 of them. A solitary manager fired Poulter after Morocco, perhaps sensing his mind wouldn't be quite on the job in Valencia - no flies on Deirdre Timlin of Salthill.
William Browne of Dartry can consider himself unlucky not to have a fourball in Powerscourt to his name after topping the £300,000 earning mark at the weekend - unfortunately for him Simon Filgas pipped him to the prize by just under £3,000. To the uninitiated, Simon is the Vicente Del Bosque of Leinster hockey - he's the coach of league champions Pembroke Wanderers. And who's Vicente? He's the coach of Real Madrid, the Simon Filgas of Spanish football.
Karlsson, Lee Janzen, John Cook, Joakim Haeggman and Vijay Singh were the stars of week eight for Bumper's Belly Boys, the team named, intriguingly, after a former international hockey colleague of Simon's who shall remain nameless, because we have to work with him.
Speaking of former Irish internationals, this time of the rugby variety - we hope Ralph Keyes' share of 10th place on the weekly leaderboard helped make up for the disappointment of seeing Munster lose last weekend, but, in truth, we kind of doubt it.
Mind you, if Ralph's Golf Masters' team does him proud at this week's Portuguese Open and Greensboro Classic the pain of the memory of that disallowed try might fade. A bit. But not much, we suspect.
