Just when their Golf Masters' world seemed to have fallen apart, with the news that the £5 million-rated Greg Norman would miss the rest of the season through injury, week nine of the competition provided a much needed boost for some of the Australian's former employers. Eighty-one managers transferred Norman out of their teams last week, on hearing the bad news, and just under half of those replaced him with David Duval (£4.7 million), just in time for his victory at the Houston Open.

One young manager wasn't so lucky. In fact his father rang the helpline to tell us that his distraught son was stuck with Norman for the rest of the competition because he had already used up his four transfers . . . a polo shirt-winning sob story if ever there was one (send us your name and address and we'll put one in the post).

Niall Flood, however, is undoubtedly the unluckiest manager of the week, having missed out on a fourball in Mount Juliet by just £250, the margin of James McEwan's victory over our Rathgar manager on the weekly leaderboard.

Niall had Italian Open winner Patrik Sjoland in his Vikings' line-up, as well as joint runner-up Joakim Haeggman, fourth placed Thomas Bjorn and Sven Struver, who tied for sixth. Unfortunately, he was pipped by a putt by The Jigger Inn 7 (named after a famous pub at St Andrews, according to one of the Golf Masters' team who is still recovering from an evening spent in the establishment last year).

James, who is a student in Paisley in Scotland (and has his father, William, to thank for entering his team) had the top two in the Houston Open, Duval and Jeff Maggert, while the rest of his team's earnings came from Bjorn (£60,000), Jean Van de Velde (£33,000), Pierre Fulke (£9,250) at the Italian Open and Richard Coughlan (£1,500) in America.

The average earnings for week nine were just £68,480, while the overall average score to date is £571,184, considerably less than Kevin Barry's Augusta Special who retain their place at the top of the overall leaderboard this week.

Paul Sheehan's Pauly 8 remain in second place, Brian Kirby's Grange jump from ninth to third, while John McCormack (21st to eighth) and Gerry Wickham (46th to ninth) are the highest new entries in the top 10 this week.

Alan Crawford, of Greystones, Co Wicklow, has given up all hope of ever appearing on either of our leaderboards, so much so he's now demanding a refund. "I have decided to sell back all my teams and would be obliged to receive a cheque for £200,000,000 (i.e., 16 teams by £12.5 million). P.S. If funds are not readily available an XL polo shirt should lift my depression." (Sorry Alan, no refunds, it's against company policy. We'll give you the choice of a credit note for the 1999 competition or an XL polo shirt, it's up to you).

And then there's Tom Murray of Raheny in Dublin. "Congratulations on the idea of publishing the bottom 10 . . . it's a pity you didn't make it the bottom 20, I might have got a mention."

Pat Doyle, of Knocklyon in Dublin? Well, he wants a polo shirt because he claims that his Carlow Scallion Eaters, who we ridiculed last year, are doing very well this time around. Where are they Pat? We've yet to spot them. (We'll swap you a polo shirt for a nice, fresh bunch of Carlow reared scallions - okay?)

Then there's Ann White, of Deerpark Road in Dublin. "I don't need a polo shirt, but I really believe I do deserve one," she claimed, mentioning something about a missed putt by Bob Estes that cost her a place on the weekly leaderboard a fortnight ago. At this rate all our polo shirts will be gone by week 11, but, alright then, we'll send ye all one, and a token for a Golf Masters' managerial course. Sounds like ye all need one. So to week 10, and the Turespana Masters in Majorca and the Bell South Classic in Georgia, where Tiger Woods makes his first appearance since the US Masters. Can the Carlow Scallion Eaters make it in to the top 50? Huh, we doubt it.