WELL, WE’D hazard a guess that most of our leading managers are working hard to erase the Memorial from their memory, none more so than Kay Cully whose Mulligan line-up earned – are you sitting comfortably? – just the nine points, having averaged over 100 in each of the previous eight weeks.
But if it wasn’t for Luke Donald, whose final round of 68 lifted him up to 12th, Kay would actually have lost points at the tournament. Three of her team – Bubba Watson, Carl Pettersson and Webb Simpson – missed the cut, with Brian Davis and Marc Leishman contributing just the four points between them.
The only consolation for Kay is that those around her didn’t fare too brilliantly either, so Mulligan only dropped from second to fourth.
Despite being one of the few managers to have enough confidence in Tiger Woods’s Memorial hopes to sign him up before the tournament, Kieron Hyland still dropped from first to second, Woods’s victory responsible for 37 of the 39 points The Guns of Alvaro collected.
Bryan Crowley, meanwhile, moved up a place to third, thanks largely to the top 10 efforts of Jonathan Byrd and Justin Rose, but he really could have done without Phil Mickelson deciding to withdraw from the tournament after the first round. “Ive got to be more big picture-oriented and think about the US Open and whats best to get my best golf out there,” he explained, evidently not including Bryan’s Fantasy Golf prospects as part of that big picture.
In the end, Michael Connolly’s Mickey’s Masters team did just enough to take over the lead, two points clear of Kieron, with Byrd, Rose, Donald and Jim Furyk his main men.
Colin Foley was the leading manager of the week, Woods and Andres Romero, who took a share of second, helping the appropriately named Happiness towards a tally of 99 – a goodie bag of golf merchandise goes to Colin.
John Paul Scallon, Kevin Doyle and Jim Power – in that order – were our top three managers of the month, John Paul and Kevin winning themselves fourballs – at Moyvalley and New Forest Golf Club, respectively – and Jim a €100 ‘credit card’ for the driving range at the Spawell Golf Centre.
John Paul’s Major Rollers didn’t have a particularly good time of it at the Memorial either, but good work earlier in the month by Paul Lawrie, Francesco Molinari, Jason Dufner and Zach Johnson proved enough for him to finish top of the May leaderboard.
Next in the schedule is the St Jude Classic in Memphis where, a week before the US Open, Rory McIlroy is the only world top 10 player in the field. Those managers keeping the faith, despite those three successive missed cuts, will trust they will be rewarded this weekend.
