Is there no beginning to the success of Rory Timlin's Underdogs in the 1998 Golf Masters? "I'm making a holy show of myself again," admitted our Galway manager when we rang to tell him his team - that finished bottom in the 1997 competition - had moved to 18,076th and last in Week 13 of this year's . . . test of our managers' golfing knowledge (ahem!).

"You'd a good week this week, Rory," we said. "Your Underdogs won nothing." "Oh thanks very much," he replied. "That's great."

Week 13 was (count them) the FIFTH week that the Underdogs scored a big round zero in the competition, but the first in which they claimed the, em, `prized' bottom place on the leaderboard. (That MUST be a world record for these type of competitions).

Rory had a `good' start in week one, winning just £3,500, but had a catastrophic week two, earning £58,250, and another bitterly disappointingly high five-figure total in week three, when he won £14,000.

So, drastic measures were required and Rory wasn't afraid to take them. Out went any players who had let their manager down by making the odd cut or two and in came Greg Norman and Brad Bryant, serial `0' scorers.

In weeks four, five and six the Underdogs bounced back by scoring a perfect `0'; there was a hiccup in week seven when David Higgins had the nerve to win almost £20,000, but since then things have been good and only £2,500 has been lodged in the team account in the past month.

In all the Underdogs have won £204,952 and only a repeat of a the Great Train Robbery will help them catch up with Kevin Barry's leading total of £1,748,958.