Lying 838th going into week 19, Brian Carty from Dublin knew his goose was cooked as far as winning our top prize of a20,000 was concerned so he did what any sensible manager would and lowered his aim to a weekly prize.
A quick check of his Setts selection showed he had six players in action between the Dutch Open and The International with only the already out-of-sorts Paul Lawrie idle for the week. Carty needed no second invitation to dump the Scotsman in favour of Australian Nathan Green, who was quietly putting together a useful season with five top-10 finishes from his 21 starts on the PGA Tour.
Make that six top-10s from 22 as Green finished ninth at Castle Pines to boost his and Carty's Golf Masters earnings by €38,000. Carty was one of 14 managers to include both of the week's tournament winners Dean Wilson and Simon Dyson (€100,000 each) and the excellent performance of Damien McGrane (third at the Dutch Open for €70,000) and the more modest efforts of Retief Goosen, Soren Hansen and David Duval were enough to put Setts in top spot.
Their winning score of €318,500 sends Carty off for a fourball at Druids Heath but it looks increasingly likely Eamonn O'Regan will take our special prize of two tickets to the International Pavilion for the final day of the Ryder Cup at the K Club. That goes to the manager who accumulates the highest weekly score, excluding all bonus money. O'Regan has been in top spot since week 12 with a formidable €360,750.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)