By common consent the most uncomfortable aspect of being a Golf Masters' manager is that you end up wishing ill on all your rivals' players. Gone are the days when you can sit back and watch a tournament on telly and holler "in the hole" when one of them goes for the eagle he needs to force a play-off.
If the player he is attempting to tie with happens to be in your line-up, there's a fair chance you'll be heard howling "in the car park" when he strikes the ball, and if that's where it ends up you'll celebrate in much the same manner as Tom Lehman made merry when Justin Leonard sank that Ryder Cup putt.
Yes, it's true - and don't deny it - Golf Masters' management brings out the very worst in most of you, and for 27 weeks of the year you can't even remember what it feels like to be sporting. Which is probably why close to 15,000 of our managers are observing Darren Clarke's continuing good form with increasing despair, even if he's a man they'd usually wish well in less troubled times (ie, the Golf Masters' off-season).
Three weeks ago Clarke's overall earnings amounted to £237,688, which meant he averaged £14,000 for the first 17 weeks of the competition. Now? Those earnings are up to £787,688 (average £40,000), a figure bettered only by Tiger Woods.
Clarke's seventh place finish at the Scottish Open brought his three-week winnings total to £550,000 - little wonder, then, that he's replaced Woods as the "must have" player amongst our leading contenders.
Paul Murray, in 26th place, was the only top 30 manager in week 20 not to include Clarke in his line-up, but we await with interest the details of this week's transfer activity - how many of you will have ditched Clarke and re-hired Woods in time for the start of the British Open today? Or how many of you took the European Open winner at his word when he said "I've never gone in to a major feeling better about my game ... I'm a pretty good bet"? And having listened to all the arguments, how many of you still hadn't a clue what to do about transfers for the penultimate major of the season? Thought so - most of you.
Of course you'd be feeling a whole lot less stressed about the British Open if you'd had a good week 20, boosting your morale and confidence in your transfer choices. Only 213 managers celebrated Retief Goosen's Scottish Open success (he's now our sixth highest earner) and just 290 benefited from Shigeki Maruyama's Milwaukee Open triumph.
David O'Donovan (twice) and Niall Hehir were the only managers to have both winners in their line-ups, but neither could outscore Stuart Carter of Portlaoise who had three of the top six at Loch Lomond - runner-up Thomas Bjorn and Paul McGinley and John Daly, joint third - to add to Maruyama and Tommy Tolles' combined earnings of £100,500 in Milwaukee.
There was no change of personnel in the top six on the overall leaderboard, with just a slight re-jigging of positions below Ray Charles who retained top spot. We do, though, have a mystery manager in seventh place (up from 10th) - if you're in charge of team number 33,747 unmask yourself, otherwise we won't be able to send you to the Ryder Cup in September should you move up seven places between now and then.
