So, how are you doing so far? That bad? Was your team one of the 229 that scored just £500 in week two? It was? Well, even if it rarely eases the pain, you know what they say: there's always someone worse off than yourself. In fact, after the Honda Classic and the Qatar Masters there were 60 teams worse off.
Yes, 60 sets of seven players failed to win a single Golf Masters' pound between them for their bosses, all of whom probably want to talk about it as much as Geoff Ogilvy wanted to discuss his final round in Florida. "I have nothing to say," was his precise response, as he trooped away from the tournament, despondent because he thought he should have won.
Mind you, a cheque for a share of second wasn't a bad consolation prize for Ogilvy, one the managers of the above-mentioned 60 teams would have gleefully settled for.
The only comfort we can offer our slow starters is that not one of them occupies our 18,872th and last position after our first four tournaments - that honour goes to Roger of Dublin. We'll keep his surname to ourselves for now, but if The Eagles don't land him much more than their current £2,000 total soon we'll have no option but to name him and shame him.
Roger might be tempted to follow the example of the exasperated Cork manager (known to his friends as Liam O'Shea) who rang our helpline this week to tell us he intended using seven of his 10 transfers to sack his entire line-up and send a brand new one into week three's tournaments, the Madeira Island Open and the Bay Hill Invitational.
Three words - "a" "little" and "hasty" - sprung to mind, but we might have said the same to Finbar Lyons of Dublin last week if he'd told us he'd already used up two of his transfers. But then Finbar sat back and watched his two new recruits - Mark Calcavecchia and Ian Woosnam - win him almost £100,000 combined, while the pair given their cards - Shigeki Maruyama and Jeff Sluman - won nothing, largely because they didn't play. Not only did he finish top of the weekly leaderboard, he's now our overall leader too.
Robert Karlsson top-scored for Meteor 114 with his second-place finish at the Qatar Masters, but all seven of Finbar's line-up did their bit, with the smallest contributor, Eamonn Darcy, bringing a respectable £12,000 to the team kitty. Enjoy your fourball in Powerscourt, Co Wicklow, Finbar.
So, to week three. Bad news, we're afraid for David Duval's 504 managers, as if things weren't bad enough after his 63rd place finish at the Genuity Championship and non-appearance at the Honda Classic, he's withdrawn from the Bay Hill Invitational with a wrist problem. The news isn't much better for the 1,629 who employ Thomas Bjorn - he's out too, officially due to "transportation problems from Europe".
Things, though, are looking up for the 2,530 who gambled on investing over half their budget on our £6.5 million man, aka Tiger Woods. He'll be back in action at Bay Hill and the Players Championship the following week, in preparation for next month's little do at Augusta.
