Early last week, Barry Murphy found himself in the golfing doldrums. For starters the 18-handicap member of Tara Glen was struggling with his own game. Birdies, even pars, have been in short supply this season.
To compound matters, none of the 20 teams he entered in Golf Masters looked to have even a remote chance of sending him Sandy Lane as our overall winner.
Perhaps he could have been forgiven for sticking the clubs in the shed for a while, if not in the small ads, and for tearing up his list of Golf Masters team numbers and PINs. But strong men triumph in adversity and Murphy proved his mettle with a brilliant coup that has at least ensured he will look snazzy down at Tara Glen in some of our Cutter and Buck apparel.
We received some truly lame appeals for free gear from managers this week. Having a bad day in the Leaving Cert does not merit a windcheater. As for the manager who won a fourball at The K-Club in a non-related event and wanted us to kit out the entire quartet, the less said the better.
Barry Murphy, on the other hand, is a manager with the potential to become a Golf Masters employee. Down on his luck, Murphy set about some intelligent analysis of the form coming into the US Open. With some bookmakers paying out on the top six at Olympia Fields, he thought that he could at least get some thrills with a few each-way bets.
Murphy took the three sets of stats from the US Tour he considered relevant to the US Open - driving accuracy, greens in regulation and scoring average. He awarded 1,000 points for a player with a driving accuracy of 80 per cent down to zero points for driving accuracy of 60 per cent. Greens in regulation got the same treatment and for scoring average it was 1,000 points for 68 down to zero points for 72. Any player worth his salt fits inside those limits and Murphy used the system to check on the chances of 25 leading contenders. By far and away the hot favourite was Jim Furyk with 2015 points, Kenny Perry was second and Mike Weir third with Tiger Woods down in 12th.
Murphy weighed in with €25 each-way on Furyk at 28 to 1 with smaller bets on Perry and Weir. Woods was ignored. Murphy is still counting his winnings.
Still we have a couple of criticisms. You could have sent us your spreadsheet before the tournament and you didn't apply the same knowledge to making any Golf Masters transfers which means you are as far away from Sandy Lane as ever.
Nonetheless for diligent number-crunching and reduction of bookies' profits we will gladly send on some Cutter and Buck.
Murphy's tip for a coming star is Jonathan Byrd who is at 66 to 1 for this week's Buick Classic. If Byrd does the business, we'll throw in half a dozen dry-cleaning vouchers. Our other counting tournament is the Diageo Championship.
