WE’LL TRUST that our managers were gracious enough to be happy for Shane Lowry when he triumphed at Baltray last Sunday, rather than shrugging their shoulders with indifference simply because the Offalyman has yet to earn himself a Golf Masters’ Tour card. If Lowry turns professional he might just appear on our list next year, which you’d have to assume is the young man’s chief ambition, but for now his heroics will have no bearing on our little competition.
Robert Rock, then, was our leading man at the Irish Open, his form now taking him past Rafael Cabrera-Bello to the top of our bargain buys’ list. Only Angel Cabrera, Ian Poulter and Tiger Woods have earned more than the Englishman so far, but they cost their managers, respectively, €3.2, €3.7 and €7.5 million - Rock’s fee was a mere €500,000.
Curiously, though, he appears in fewer Golf Masters’ teams now than he did at registration time, although after his share of second place at the Italian Open in week five 11 managers transferred him into their line-ups in time for the Irish Open. In all, then, 200 teams benefited from Rock’s Baltray showing, three less than included him when the competition got under way.
Jim Feeney, our overall leader, could have done with a Rock-like performance from one of his Bad Deal line-up, the team winning just over €30,000 in week six – and €21,000 of that came from one man, Thomas Bjorn.
Raphael Jacquelin and Rory McIlroy were the only other players to contribute to the team kitty, with three of Jim’s selection having the week off. What about the other two, Francesco Molinari and Michael Hoey? Yes, they were both disqualified from the Irish Open, Molinari’s mishap (he signed for an incorrect score) particularly galling for Jim and the Italian’s other 192 managers after he had broken the course record in the opening round and was still in contention at the end of day two.
But, despite their woes, Bad Deal have held on to first place on the overal leaderboard, with David Maune, who won the Golf Masters 10 years ago, up to second with Cremorne 4. The biggest mover, though, in the top 10 is Alan McGonagle whose Elana 7 team jumped from 32nd to eighth after winning €146,550 in week six – only 312 teams did better.
One of them goes by the name of Hack-tastic, their manager declaring, with some relief, that he was finally “getting better” at this Golf Masters’ business on hearing that he’d won a fourball at Druids Heath and a Nike polo shirt after topping our weekly leaderboard. Ger Fitzgerald, of Celbridge, Co Kildare, had three players in the top six at Baltray, Johan Edfors, Nick Dougherty and Alastair Fortsyth, with Paul Goydos, who took a share of third at the Texas Open, his other big winner.
Seamus Parle was Ger’s closest challenger, Zach Johnson his top scorer. Twenty-five of you evidently fancied Johnson’s chances of retaining his Texas Open title, so hired him last week, but five of you reckoned lightning never strikes twice - so you sacked him. And he retained his title.
On we go to week seven where there is more bonus money on offer at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, with the Byron Nelson Championship our second counting tournament of the week.
