Eoin Kirk admits he wouldn't know Simon Wakefield if he bumped into him in the street but after events on the opening week of Golf Masters 2004, Kirk might feel like doing the decent thing and asking Wakefield to join him and a couple of his friends for a fourball and lunch at the Heritage Golf and Country Club in Killenard, Co Laois.
"I don't know what he looks like and I don't know what age he is," admits Kirk. "I just know that when I was registering my teams last Thursday, his name appeared on the Teletext leaderboard for the Madeira Island Open. I needed someone cheap so I stuck him in."
Whatever about Thursday mornings, Wakefield rarely appears on Teletext leaderboards on Sunday afternoons and last weekend was no exception. However, the €9,750 he earned for finishing tied 33rd was an important contribution to the week-one winning total of €414,900 amassed by Kirk's Lillywhite Lob Wedges.
Over 100 teams included both Adam Scott and Padraig Harrington, who were first and second in the Players Championship, where we had bonus money on offer, so it was always the lesser-value players who were going to make the difference.
In addition to Wakefield, Kirk profited from good showings by Kevin Sutherland and Glen Day in Sawgrass plus Jamie Spence and Miko Ilonen in Madeira.
Once the postal strike is over, Eoin can send his fourball invite to Simon Wakefield, c/o European Tour, Wentworth. And Eoin, in case you struggle to recognise him in the Heritage car park, is 6ft 2in tall, weighs 11 stone and will be 30 later this month.
Then if you are struggling for conversation on the way round, it may help to know that Wakefield is a nephew of the former England test wicketkeeper Bob Taylor, that he took up golf at the age of 15 and was off scratch at the age of 17 and that his great love is Port Vale Football Club. He has never finished in the top 10 of a European Tour event but won the 2002 Tessali Open del Sud on the Challenge Tour when he birdied the final three holes.
There you go, the season's first dose of golfing statistics and off-beat trivia, the heady mixture that has almost 12,000 of you back in the hunt for the overall Golf Masters title.
Okay, so a trip for four to the Ryder Cup plus €1,000 spending money and a €1,000 voucher for golf gear might have something to do with making Golf Masters the most popular game of its type in Ireland but we like to think that these columns play their part.
To keep you interested in week two, our tournaments are the Algarve Portuguese Open and the Bellsouth Classic, and do not despair if you are already way off our leader.
Kirk leads the posse of those who targeted teams specifically at our first weekly prize but the average team earnings were just €81,031, and eight teams have yet to earn a single cent.
golfmasters@irish-times.ie
