With only four transfers available to our Golf Masters' managers over the course of the last 29 weeks there wasn't much room for poor judgment on the transfer market if you had ambitions to be amongst the leading challengers at the end of the competition. David Maune, our 1999 winner, not surprisingly, got it just right.
His Cremorne 1 line-up was made up of Des Smyth, David Duval, Eduardo Romero, Ignacio Garrido, Tim Herron, Len Mattiace and Chris DiMarco at registration time and, after a slow start (they didn't get in to the top 1,000 until week five) they rose to fourth by week 11 (thanks largely to Duval's earnings of £335,600 in that period).
By then David had fired Romero and Garrido and hired Andrew Magee and Steve Pate, but when Magee won less than £20,000 over the next three weeks he was replaced by Retief Goosen, who went on to be our fifth highest earner of the year (behind Colin Montgomerie, Tiger Woods, Lee Westwood and Hal Sutton). So, David had one transfer left and he used it to swap Duval for Montgomerie, just when the American took a break from the game and just before Monty won the Benson and Hedges International and the Volvo PGA Championship, both bonus tournaments. It proved to be the switch that won David the competition because Montgomerie went on to win almost one third of Cremorne 1's total earnings, including the £61,667 at the Lancome Trophy last weekend that clinched him first place. Best value for money player: Bob May (cost £1.0; won £466,964), followed by Greg Kraft, Chris DiMarco, Paul Lawrie, Retief Goosen, Chris Perry, JL Lewis, Mark Wiebe, Angel Cabrera and Dean Robertson. Worst Team of the Year: Paul Doyle's unnamed line-up ran away with the coveted title, winning just £129,125, almost £90,000 clear of Brian O'Callaghan's Thunderbirds (Paul's from Leopardstown in Dublin, Brian's a native of Mallow, Co Cork). Final position of our week one leader: Frank Nyhan: 10,299th.
Overall average score: £1,876,641.
Golf Masters' HQ Dream Team (which we weren't allowed enter): Eamonn Darcy, Colin Montgomerie, Retief Goosen, Bob May, Angel Cabrera, Chris Perry, Greg Kraft. Total earnings: £4,104,371 (but we're not bitter).
