In the same way that Formula One has a constructors' championship that runs in parallel to the drivers' championship, and horse racing has leading jockey and leading trainer accolades, we are beginning to think that Golf Masters should publish psychologists earnings alongside those of the players they work with.
The Michael Schumacher of golf psychologists is surely Bob Rotella who would have topped such a table for many seasons. Jos Vanstiphout ran a decent second for a while, especially when he hooked up with Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. The new kid on the block, the Fernando Alonso of golf psychologists, is Jamil Qureshi and his work with Steve Webster and Gary Emerson helped power Pearse O'Connell's Farney Lasses to the top of our week seven leaderboard.
Not to be confused with Pakistan's Minister for Communications Shahid Jamil Qureshi, our man is a cross between Paul Daniels, Eddie Izzard and Barry Sinclair, blending classical magic, stand-up comedy and hypnosis. "Mind-shaping", he calls it and it certainly had a profound effect on Webster. Before last week's Italian Open, the 30-year old Englishman had played almost 250 European Tour events in his 10-year professional career without ever winning. Even with career earnings of €2.7 million he had begun to consider other ways of making a living. Then a few sessions with the Qureshi, the man he says "can pull a rabbit out of a pair of unsuspecting trousers" and, hey presto, Webster has his maiden victory.
The wait for success hasn't been quite as long for Pearse O'Connell but the Monaghan native has certainly paid his Golf Masters dues. "The first year that I played I put in one team and expected to win. It turned out not to be as easy as I thought. Last year I put in a few teams and just about scraped onto a weekly leaderboard. This year I put in 14 teams but to be honest I had given up on them already. I put Woods in one team, Singh in another and so on, but once you have one of the top fellas, you're left dealing with very poor quality."
That seems a bit harsh on Webster and another Qureshi client, Gary Emerson, who picked up €13,500 for finishing tied 25th in Italy alongside Michael Hoey and Gary Murphy. The Irish player among the Farney Lasses was Graeme McDowell who missed the cut, but Bradley Dredge contributed €70,000 for his tied second finish in Italy and the Lasses were among an astonishing 203 teams to include both Webster and the Wachovia Championship winner, Vijay Singh.
O'Connell's prize is a fourball at Druids Heath, part of the Druids complex which won European golf resort of the year in 2004. In the quest for overall honours, the Lasses moved up to 518th with €663,073. That's a long way behind the top-ranked Justyne Murnaghan whose Simple Minds became the first team to surpass €1 million for the season by finishing 181st on the week with €215,000. Simple Minds also include Singh and Webster as do Tony Murnaghan's Markers Conditions who also passed the million barrier in rising to second place.
Former leaders Ashwing 5, managed by Brian Deering, dropped to seventh place.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)