Liam Butler could be forgiven for having long since abandoned hope of making any impact in the 1998 Golf Masters, with his Pompey Strollers languishing back in 6,830th place on our overall leaderboard after week 15.
Our Birr manager was also entitled to feel a little aggrieved with Lee Janzen, Payne Stewart, Tom Lehman and Steve Stricker, on whom he had spent u(pound sign) £9.2 million of his total budget. Before the quartet headed for The Olympic Club in San Francisco last week their average earnings to date were £199,631 - not bad, but not good enough to help lift the team into the top 6,000.
However, by the time Janzen had secured his second US Open victory in five years on Sunday evening, those average earnings had risen to £342,131, and Liam had seen the Pompey Strollers rise a place or two, to 505th overall.
The team's total prize-money from the US Open was a remarkable £578,250, £200,000 of which was won by Janzen. Payne Stewart collected £160,000 for second place with Lehman and Stricker winning £105,000 each for their joint-fifth finish. Scott Verplank (joint 49th) and Mark Brooks (57th) added another £8,250 to the team total and helped win their manager a fourball in Mount Juliet.
Catherine Sherry, of Rathfarnham in Dublin, Galway's Declan Varley and the unnamed manager of Thomas the Tank Engine have all earned the right to feel very sorry for themselves, having topped the £500,000 mark in week 16 but missed out on a fourball. Polo shirts all round - would Thomas's manager get in touch and give us his/her name and address, otherwise we'll have to send your polo shirt to The Fat Controller.
Kevin Barry stretched his lead over Tony and Brian Murnaghan at the top of the overall leaderboard by £16,500 to £32,290, but it would have been more if the Murnaghans hadn't made a shrewd transfer last week, replacing Stephen Allan with Glen Day in their Bargain Basement line-up. Allan didn't play at the weekend while Day won £33,000 for his share of 23rd at the US Open, exactly £16,500 less than Augusta Special's Paul Azinger, who tied for 14th.
Niall Murray, of Dungannon, Co Tyrone, moved from 10th to third overall this week, due largely to Stricker, Azinger and Jim Furyk's US Open performances, while Gerry Wickham, a former fourball winner, re-entered the top 50 in sixth place and Paul Doyle came in at ninth - Paul is one of 913 managers to have had Janzen in their teams for the US Open.
In all, 19 teams dropped out of the top 50 in a week when the average score was just £98,971, bringing the overall average earnings to date to £1,102,373. Twenty-one teams failed to score anything in week 16, with another 400 winning less than £5,000.
Most of those line-ups were dominated by European Tour players and with a relatively weak field in action at the Madeira Island Open there wasn't much money to be won. None of the top three in Maderia -winner Mats Lanner, runner-up Stephen Scahill and third-placed Andrew Beal - is included in the Golf Masters' list of players. Only two of the top nine, Thomas Gogele and Carl Suneson, made it on our 1998 list.
This week's French Open should prove more profitable for those teams with a European bias - amongst the entry are seven Irish players, (Paul McGinley, Philip Walton, Raymond Burns, Des Smyth, Francis Howley, David Higgins and Cameron Clark) Colin Montgomerie, Bernhard Langer and defending champion Retief Goosen.
The Western Open in Chicago is this week's American tournament, from which Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood and Ernie Els have withdrawn. Westwood's managers might be consoled, however, by the news that he has been granted a late entry into next week's Irish Open, where one and a half times' the regular Golf Masters' prize-money will be on offer.
