WITH JUST the St Jude Classic in the schedule, week 10 proved to be a largely unproductive one for the majority of our teams, 1,095 of them earning not a cent. One of those line-ups is none other than Lucan 2, second on last week’s overall leaderboard, but manager Frank Brennan might be surprised to see he’s only fallen one place – few of the top-10 teams below him fared much better.
Eugene McMahon, in eighth last week, was another manager to have no representatives in the St Jude field, while Raymond Behan (fourth a week ago) and Pat O’Hara (sixth) won just €2,000 between them.
A few of our leading contenders, though, were rescued by the one or two players they had in action, among them Pat Mullen, up to second, and William Ferris, who has risen to sixth, who had St Jude runner-up David Toms to thank for their progress. Brett Quigley, meanwhile, was Lorraine O’Brien’s saviour in week 10, his share of 29th worth €10,750, Irish Invaders’ entire earnings for the week.
It was enough for Lorraine to hold on to top spot, but Pat is closing in, just over €12,000 behind. Brian Gay’s victory in Memphis benefited just 98 Golf Masters’ teams, although included in that number is a group of 29, whose managers were shrewd/fortunate enough to hire the Texan last week.
A much transferred player he has been too, attracting plenty of interest after he won the Verizon Heritage in week two, but losing his employers’ faith after a barren few weeks.
Illness forced him to withdraw from the Players Championship, he missed the cut at the Byron Nelson and just made it in to the top 30 at the Crowne Plaza Invitational. But this, his second Tour win in nine weeks, should boost his numbers again.
One of the managers who recruited Gay last week was Finbarr Lyons of Clondalkin in Dublin – and to say his American Pie line-up was in need of a boost would be to drastically understate their Golf Masters’ struggles to date.
Last week the team won a less than overwhelming €7,250 between them, putting them in 4,484th on our overall leaderboard. As a former weekly winner in our competition Finbarr knows enough about these things to recognise when a team is need of major surgery. So, axe in hand, he fired every single member of American Pie on the eve of the St Jude Classic.
The only sacking to backfire was that of Retief Goosen, who won €10,750 at the weekend, with John Merrick the only other ex-member of American Pie to score – he tied for 73rd. The rest of the team, though, didn’t play in the St Jude Classic, so no loss there.
So, other than Gay, who were Finbarr’s successful new recruits? David Toms, the runner-up, Robert Allenby and John Senden, who took a share of fourth, Bob Estes, joint 23rd – Tom Pernice, who missed the cut, was the sole mishap.
Net result? American Pie was the only team to top the €300,000 earnings mark in week 10, one of just seven to win more than €200,000. They’re now up to a vertigo-inducing 864th overall, and Finbarr is off to Druids Heath for a fourball in his brand new Nike polo shirt. The surgery, you could say, went rather well.
