Well, it might have been obvious to Rose Mary Freeney (Dublin), Morton Penrose (Kildare), John Finkel (Dublin), Phil Aherne (Cork), Terry Hogan (Carlow) and Fionnuala McMahon (Dublin), who all transferred him into their line-ups just in time for the British Open, that he was about to win his first major - but it wasn't to us, or to the managers of the 18,374 teams which don't employ David Duval.
True, he can play a bit, but he hadn't exactly set the Golf Masters alight this year; before week 21 he was 23rd on our money list, which wasn't particularly impressive seeing as he's our joint sixth most expensive player. Now he's 11th on the list, which is much more like it.
Did anyone transfer Duval out on the eve of the British Open? Afraid so - a single, solitary, lonely, mortified, distraught and bewildered manager from Carrigaline, Co Cork. We, of course, attempted to contact Phelim to offer him our condolences (and counselling if he wanted it) but, sensibly, he was out and about when we called so we left a promise of a polo shirt with his loved one.
Commiserations, too, to David McDermott of Beaumont, Dublin, who failed to complete a "major hat-trick". Having transferred Tiger Woods out just before the US Masters and fired Retief Goosen hours before the US Open got under way, we were entirely confident his name would pop up on the ex-Duval employers' list, but it didn't.
We don't mean to offend David, but we suspect the only reason he missed out this time was because he had no transfers left.
Three more managers worthy of mention, and deserving of our sympathy and a polo shirt, are Dubliners Roy Ball and John Sullivan and Ballybofey, Co Donegal, resident Patrick Laverty who had both Duval and runner-up Niclas Fasth in their line-ups but ended up with not a fourball between them - let down a bag full by the remaining five members of their teams who either didn't make it into the field or wished they hadn't.
Despite pickings of just £33,500 from the Open (which left Castle Street 1 in the nether regions of our weekly leaderboard, tied for 14,229nd), Ray Charles has retained the overall lead but his advantage has been slashed from almost £200,000 to just over £16,000 by Tim Morris, whose Missing Links 3 crew came home from Royal Lytham with £219,000 to their name (almost all of the prize money won by Darren Clarke and Bernhard Langer).
Packie Gallagher, who moves from sixth to fourth, was our highest scoring top 10 manager (£225,250) with Gerry Wickham, Tom Higgins, Pat Corby (our 1999 runner-up) and Seamus Parle also making significant inroads in to Ray's lead by topping £200,000.
We note, with interest, that three of our former winners now occupy top 50 places: reigning Golf Masters' champion Colin Rutherford is in 25th spot, Paul Sheehan (our 1998 winner) is in 11th, 31st and 43rd, while 1996 winner Michael McManamon is 41st.
If experience counts for anything - and, usually, in Golf Masters land it doesn't - their every move between now and week 27 will be watched fearfully by their chief rivals for the 2001 crown.
What now? The Dutch Open and the John Deere Classic in Illinois, that's what. Not that this information is of any interest whatsoever to Ian Woosnam's 297 Golf Masters managers, all of whom nigh on lost the will to live last Sunday afternoon. Just think ... if that extra club had been removed from Woosie's bag they'd be 53,000 Golf Masters' pounds the richer.
