A multitude of Murnaghans

What is the collective noun for a group of Murnaghans? A threeball of Murnaghans? A timesheet of Murnaghans? Or, looking at our overall standings five weeks into the season, perhaps it should be a leaderboard-chock-full-of Murnaghans. Mind you, our overall leader in the race for the €20,000 top prize, Brian Deering, might pointedly amend that to a leaderboard-chock-full-of-but-not-headed-by-any Murnaghans.

Tony Murnaghan is the lead member of the group, what sociologists might term the Alpha Male. He does work for a living, but likes to supplement his income and tax his brain cells with various Fantasy sports games. The big cash we are offering this year certainly got his attention and he has five teams in the top 50, including three in the top six. Then there is Justyne Murnaghan, Tony's daughter, who has three teams in the top 50, including two in the top eight. A few weeks back, Tony's son Mark also featured prominently.

Years from now, when the grandchildren are going to sleep, bedtime stories will be great fun in the Murnaghan household. "Ah go on, grandad, tell us the one about the time you transferred out Zach Johnson and brought in Colin Montgomerie."

"Well children, if you insist. That was in week five of the 2005 season in the Irish Times Golf Masters, which really was the best of those sports games. Johnson was a very good American professional but he missed the cut in the Masters that year and then finished tied 47th in the Heritage. He was going to take at least two weeks off, so I brought in Colin Montgomerie, or Monty as he was known.

"Now Monty had been the European number one for years. Sometimes he was really nice and friendly and sometimes he was a real ogre. Well, in 2005, Monty was trying very hard to work his way back up the world rankings and he was playing almost every week and winning a lot of money. So in week five, I brought him into my Long Good Friday selection instead of Johnson and that produced a profit of 45,333.33. That was the kind of transaction that made me very good at Golf Masters. By the end of the season, in week 23, I had won 20,000, a fourball in Druids Heath and two Cutter & Buck shirts and we have all lived happily ever after."

That might be the fairytale scenario out Stillorgan way, but lurking down in Kilkenny is a big, bad wolf in the form of Brian Deering, who has also been active in the transfer market. Among his week five recruits was Jose-Maria Olazabal who picked up €70,000 for outright third place in the Houston Open, and that lifted Deering's Ashwing 5 into top spot on the overall leaderboard, 27,417 ahead of The Long Good Friday. Other movers and shakers include Paddy Roe, whose Lucky Seven rose from 125th to ninth, and Paul Coughlan's Scotty 2, who jumped from 489th to 33rd.

"Now children, off to sleep, and next Thursday I'll tell you all about the Asian Open and the New Orleans Classic."