Fairytale end to fantasy golf contest

It was a good day's work for Bob Estes, a leading US professional golfer. A four under par final round of 68 had moved him up to joint 11th at the Texas Open on Sunday afternoon, winning him a cheque for just over $31,000. The year before he'd missed the cut at his home-state tournament, so he was happy.

He signed his card, returned to the clubhouse, cleaned up and headed for the Grill Room. But just as he was settling down to his meal he was paged for a telephone call.

"Is that Bob Estes?" an unfamiliar voice asked. "Yeah," said Bob. "This is Paul Sheehan here, from Dublin. In Ireland." "Who?" "Paul Sheehan. It's a long story, Bob, but you've just won me £10,000 - thanks very much."

Back in February Paul was one of a record entry of 18,076 in The Irish Times/First Call Direct "Golf Masters", the fantasy golf competition in which managers are given a £12.5 million budget to "buy" seven players from a list of 240.

With one week and two tournaments to go Paul trailed another Dubliner, Susan Coleman, by £16,573. By the end of the German Masters on Sunday he had halved the gap, which meant he needed Estes to finish in the top 40 at the Texas Open to clinch the £10,000 first prize.

"I knew Estes had to finish in the top 40 for Paul to win," Susan said. "It was terrible, there we were watching this poor man playing golf on telly and wishing he'd do badly".

Meanwhile, Paul, who doesn't have Sky Sports, which was showing live coverage of the Texas Open, went to the home of his friend Tony Hynes to watch the golf . . . but his telly was on the blink. "I was up the walls now," Paul said.

"But then Tony, brilliantly, says, `I'll ring the course in Texas,' so he got the number from directory inquiries, rang up and found out that Estes had finished joint 11th." Which meant Paul had won the competition by £17,824.

"So I said to Tony, `Ring back there and get me Bob Estes'. So he did. He put on this American accent and . . . the guy put him through. I explained to him about the Golf Masters and he says, `That's great, I'm delighted - if I'd known that pressure was on me I mightn't have got those putts in the last few holes.'

" `Well', I said, `You've had a great season, Bob, well done', and he said, `It's not over yet,' and I thought, `It is for me.' Thank you very much, Bob Estes."