Bookies very rarely get it wrong – and the same can be said about Fantasy Golf managers. Last week’s British Open at Muirfield was always going to be a pivotal week with the triple points on offer for the third Major of the season.

Some 29.64% of managers felt Phil Mickelson could do it as he was the most popular pick for Muirfield, followed by Graeme McDowell (23.36%), Jason Day (21.04%) and Henrik Stenson (18.33%), while Ernie Els was next best at 17.92% to successfully defend his Open crown.

So, 385 managers brought Lefty into their teams following his Scottish Open win, with 295 transferring him out, while 313 managers brought in Stenson, with 263 taking him out of their team after the Scottish Open. At the end of the week, PJ Cooney’s Woodywoodpeckers were sitting pretty with 336 points, the same number as Ali Powell’s Taylor Made.

Cooney had winner Mickelson, second-placed Stenson and tied-third Westwood in his side, alongside Angel Cabrera (tied 11th), Sergio Garcia and Martin Laird. Powell might not have had Mickelson but did have Stenson, Westwood, Zack Johnson (tied 6th), Hunter Mahan (tied 9th), Miguel Angel Jimenez (tied 13th) and Garcia to make up 336 points for the week.

Up the leaderboard
The success of Cooney and Powell sees them move up the overall leaderboard to 111th and 1,754th respectively, while third-placed Stephen Simon and his Stevies Wonders jumped to 33rd place after amassing 330 points.

In the overall standings there is a new leader in Susan Walsh and her Ballinakill Hackers. Helped by having Mickelson and Stenson in her ranks, she had 218 points, good enough for 325th place in the week, but plenty to take over at the summit. She now leads with 1,016 points, with Tom Grant moving from fourth to second on 1,003 with his Rambling Boys of Leisure. Matt Sims is still third, on 990, and Peter Lavelle is up from 19th to fourth.

Last week’s leader overall leader, Mark Fowler plummeted down the leaderboard, picking up only 28 points and dropping to 45th.