Hello again. We trust you wintered well and are in fine fettle as you and your teams set off on our sixth Golf Masters' journey. Since last year you'll have noticed that your pound buys less but inflation has bitten here too: this year's first prize is a monster £15,000, compared to the modest £10,000 won by our first five champions.

There's more. No longer will our runner-up have to settle for £1,000 - second place will land you £3,000 this year while third place wins you £1,500. With carrots like that dangled before our managers' eyes is it any wonder that we had 20,891 entries this year? Better still, we're now going to feed our weekly winners when we send them off on their fourball. Yes, dinner for four has been added to the prize for the top manager each week and, this year, Tulfarris, Co Wicklow plays host to our fourball winners, having clinched the hosting rights (second only to the Ryder Cup in terms of hosting prestige, we reckon). There are plenty of changes too on our players' list, with over 60 of last year's line-up losing their Golf Masters' cards, including Nick Faldo. We'll leave it to our old friend Donal Ryan, who tells us Tulfarris is just a hook away from his front door, to explain why.

"The nice people at Golf Masters HQ have kindly omitted Nick Faldo from this year's list. This is to save anybody who was thinking of including him in their line-up the trouble and cost of a phone call to sack him. (Much to the disgust I dare say, of Rory Timlin and a few other idiosyncratic individuals who annually vie for last place)".

Faldo responded to this snub by taking a share of 21st at the Doral Ryder Open last weekend, a clear indication that he is determined to regain his Golf Masters card for next season. Our newcomers include that promising youngster Sergio Garcia, who enters the list as our joint fourth most expensive player (with Lee Westwood), while Jean Van de Velde is back by popular demand.

Notah Begay is another debutante on the list, who incidentally has just completed a week in jail. "I thought that Notah Begay represented real value at £1.5 million so I included him in six teams with such exalted company as Tiger, Darren and Padraig. While watching the Doral Ryder Open reference was made in the TV commentary to the fact that Notah was enjoying the action from prison," wrote Brendan Fitzgerald in his fax. "Things can only get better from here - who would be a Golf Masters manager?"

Brendan wasn't alone in greeting this news with dismay . . . Begay appears in 1,824 of our teams. Good news, though: the American is free, after spending seven days in prison for driving offences, and having worked on his short game behind bars, hopes to be back in action at the Bay Hill tournament in week three. So, hold those transfers. All seven of John O'Donnell's line-up were at liberty to win him our first fourball of the year, combining to earn the very appropriately named `Week One Hopefuls' £385,000 at the Dubai Desert Classic, where all seven finished in the top 12 (including the winner, Jose Coceres).

John, a native of Ardara, Co Donegal but living in Dublin, doesn't, however, hold out much hope of retaining first place on the leaderboard until September. "I think it was a once-off and they won't be seen again. Apparently Coceres is going to go back to Argentina to feed all the poor in Buenos Aires so we probably won't see him for six months - he should be trying to feed me £15,000, surely that's more important."

Already our managers' dilemmas are mounting up and it's only week one. A comment on today? How about `I hate this game', as David Duval put it after a third-round 70 left him eight strokes back at the Doral Ryder Open. Let's hope week two - when our tournaments are the Qatar Masters and the Honda Classic - proves less stressful.