Sheehan Bites the bullet, Baby

As Darren Clarke was licking his wounds up at the K Club on Monday evening, last year's Golf Masters overall winner, Paul Sheehan from Dublin, was also left to ponder what might have been.

Sheehan had been making steady progress in this year's competition with several of his teams, but the main one, Bite Baby, was up to eighth in the overall table before the European Open, and a win for Clarke would have sent them into the lead.

A Clarke victory would have made him the first Irishman in the short history of the Golf Masters to win on home territory, an achievement which would have earned a £250,000 bonus in addition to the £150,000 first prize for the 5,399 teams for which he plays.

"I thought I had it on Sunday night," said Sheehan yesterday, "but Westwood was the guy I thought might be a problem on the last day all right." But the Dubliner bears no grudge against Clarke, for much of the progress of his teams in recent weeks has been the result of transferring the northerner, along with Retief Goosen, in at the expense of Eamonn Darcy and Jose-Maria Olazabal.

"I've been lucky since then," he says. "First Goosen went bananas, and now Clarke's done well and it's nice to have a team up there in the hunt again, although I really can't see me winning again."

Deposed leader Pat Corby is Sheehan's tip to inherit his crown, and he cites the presence of Hal Sutton in his rival's sides as one of his main reasons for fancying his chances over those of David Maune, who this week nevertheless regains the lead after his players had the decency to get back out there on the course for him.

"I almost picked Sutton myself, but then I read that his wife was going to have twins in February, so I thought, `Hey, this guy is loaded, he'll end up putting his feet up for a while after that.' But there he is out there every week now raking in more money."

Raking it in particularly successfully this week, meanwhile, is Ciaran Gleeson and his Shank U Very Much team whose £409,500 was enough, even without Lee Westwood, to earn this week's four-ball down at Mount Juliet. Clarke, Peter O'Malley and Skip Kendall provided the backbone of the winning score, while Paul Lawrie, Frank Lickliter and Peter Lonard all pitched in with a few bob.

Gleeson, who runs the bar that bears his name on Mount Merrion Avenue in Dublin, has figured on both the weekly and overall leader-boards before, but he reckoned that the absence of the European Open winner from his teams this week ruled out of any chance of him grabbing his first prize.

He wasn't entirely sure how he had done, though, for he admits to having lost the lists of players in all of his Golf Masters teams, a bit of a handicap when it comes to discussing the competition with the other managers who pay him a visit from time.

"There'd be a few lads have teams," he says, "and one of the fellas who'd come in from time to time actually won it last year." Step forward Mr Sheehan. Small world this Golf Masters beat, eh?

Anyway, Gleeson, a member at Elm Park, is off to Kilkenny, while our pros will be heading for the Scandinavian Masters and the Buick Open.

Of course, the US PGA the following week may well have a greater effect on out top 50 leader-board. Hal Sutton could be in contention for the big prize at the Medinah Country Club, but from Dublin there will be at least one lone voice, crying out "forget those majors, Hal, take the weekend off and spend some time with the wife and those kids".