AFTER OUR overall leaderboard experienced a rather dramatic shake-up last week following the US Open, there was a return to some semblance of stability in the wake of the Travelers Championship and the BMW International Open, as our top three managers held on to their positions.
Neither tournament, though, provided rich pickings for our leaders. Only four managers in the top-30 won €100,000 or more, among them Fergal Lynch, whose Flyers rose from 15th to seventh, and David O’Toole, up from 21st to 14th.
Paul Dowling, who had three players taking the week off, had to settle for a €56,000 haul from Too Little Too Late, but Ricky Barnes rescued the leaders with his share of fifth place in Connecticut. Ignacio Garrido could only tie for 36th in Munich, while Ernie Els and Damien McGrane missed the cut there.
Sam Holt fared even worse. With four of his players off duty he needed Barnes, Adam Scott and Bill Haas to produce big performances – Barnes obliged, but Scott and Haas didn’t make it past the second round.
None of our leading contenders struggled quite like Ian Bennett’s Hillside Hackers, though, and their meagre earnings of €22,500 saw them drop from fourth to 19th.
“Never really in my wildest dreams did I think I would win this tournament,” said David Horsey after his maiden European Tour victory in Munich, and considering he appears in only 78 Golf Masters’ teams it wasn’t a triumph many of you anticipated either.
Indeed, two managers were so unimpressed by Horsey’s earnings of €90,964 in the first 11 weeks of the competition they sacked him, just before he embarked on his winning journey around that course in Germany.
One of the teams which lost Horsey’s services at such an inopportune time was a bit familiar to us, and after digging through the files we discovered that they – The Galacticos – suffered a similar mishap in last year’s competition: their manager fired Jerry Kelly on the eve of his triumph at the Zurich Classic, his first in seven years and 200 attempts. John? What can we say? Patience, maybe?
We can, though, salute Meath’s own Gabriel McDonnell, the only manager to hire Horsey last week. That piece of transfer wizardry sent the magnificently named Bonkers in Baconstown clippity clopping their way to 115th on the weekly leaderboard.
Bubba Watson’s play-off success in Connecticut, meanwhile, would have been more warmly received than Horsey’s victory, as the American features in 281 teams. But if Justin Rose had better luck defending his three-stroke lead going in to the final round that would have raised a rowdy cheer from 471 managers.
Séamus Keenan was, though, more than happy to see Watson prevail, as he was with top-10 finishes from Pádraig Harrington, Barnes, Vaughn Taylor and Rickie Fowler. Add in top-30 placings for the two Dannys, Lee and Willett, in Munich and you have a winning weekly score. A fourball in Druids Heath and a Nike polo shirt for Seamus.
Next up is the French Open and the ATT National in Pennsylvania.
