Finally, it's happened - a manager has retained his place at the top of the overall leader-board for the first time in 10 weeks. Take a bow David Randall of Sandyford, Co Dublin - hold on for just another 19 weeks and you'll be £10,000 the richer.
Last week David and William Brennan were the first managers to top the £1 million earning mark but this week another 34 - down to Noel O'Brien (of Santry) in 36th place - have joined them on a seven figure total. Well done to all.
It was money hard earned too because 117 of our 235 players didn't play at the weekend and two more, Dean Robertson and Stuart Appleby (winners, respectively, of week nine's Italian and Houston Opens) withdrew after their first rounds last Thursday, so earned nothing either.
Add to that another 40 of our players who missed the cut in France and at the Compaq Classic in New Orleans and the 24 who finished outside the top 50 then it's not surprising that the average score this week was just £41,667, bringing the overall average to £538,324.
Australian Stephen Leaney and Swede Klas Eriksson were two of the players to miss the cut in France but their managers (402 employ Eriksson and 93 Leaney) were probably just relieved the two turned up for action at all - the French Open was their first Golf Masters' tournament of the year.
Pat Corby of Stillorgan, Co Dublin, had no complaints about his fortunes in week 10, having won himself a four-ball in Mount Juliet and seen three of his teams pass the £1 million earning barrier - they're in eighth, 13th and 27th on the overall leader-board.
Pat is reaping the rewards for being one of the relatively few managers to include Carlos Franco in a number of his line-ups from the start of the competition - at registration time he appeared in 108 teams but has since been hired by another 25 managers.
Franco took a share of third at the Honda Classic in week two, tied for sixth at the US Masters and brought his earnings to date to £243,600 by winning in New Orleans, making him our 14th best value for money buy so far.
After Franco the top earners for Pat's weekly winners (Magpies 7) were Greg Turner (second in France, after losing a play-off to Retief Goosen), Hal Sutton and Glen Day (who tied for seventh at the Compaq Classic) and Bob May (who had a top 30 finish at the French Open) - Philip Walton's £500 for missing the cut brought the team total to £275,917, just over £2,000 ahead of the unlucky Jim Ryan of Rathfarnham.
You'll spot that the dreaded "No Name Given" makes several appearances on both our weekly and overall leader-boards this week. Curiously most of the anonymously entered line-ups have very similar team numbers so we have a hunch - but we could be entirely wrong - that the same manager entered them all in one batch. If he or she contacts us at the help-line number we'll see to it that their name is added to each entry.
We'd like to send a "get well very soon" message to Roger Mullarkey, 16th on the overall leader-board with the wonderfully named Mega Diaper Babies, who is currently laid up recovering from an operation. We can't imagine that a Golf Masters' polo shirt would speed your recovery, Roger, but we'll send you one any way. Hope you're back on your feet soon.
There's bonus money on offer this week at the Benson and Hedges International at the Oxfordshire (i.e. players will win one and a half times the regular prize money) while week 11's American tournament is the Byron Nelson Classic in Texas.
