With 17 weeks to go in the competition it's a little early to be predicting who'll be involved in the race for the £10,000 first prize. However, having opened a sizeable lead over their nearest rivals, Kevin Barry and the Murnaghan brothers, Tony and Brian, look good bets to be in contention in the final week of the 1998 Golf Masters.

The Murnaghans went top of the overall leaderboard last week for the first time this year but Kevin's Augusta Special regained their lead in Week 13 after outscoring Bargain Basement by £9,000 at the Deutsche Bank Open in Hamburg and the Memorial in Ohio.

Unlike Kevin, who has used up all four of his transfers, the Murnaghans can still alter their line-up should any of their players pick up injuries or suffer a slump in form. For now the two teams have five players in common - Darren Clarke, Jose Maria Olazabal, Thomas Bjorn, Bob Estes and John Huston - and between them they won £134,000 at the weekend.

Kevin had Billy Mayfair to thank for putting him back on top this week - the seventh member of his team, Paul Azinger, took the weekend off - and Mayfair picked up a cheque for £10,500 for his share of 31st place at the Memorial. The Murnaghans were relying on Peter Lonard and Stephen Allan to outscore Mayfair and Azinger, but Lonard didn't play and Allan won just £1,500 for his joint 76th place finish in Hamburg.

Brendan Hill's Ollie's Army, who swapped places with Paul Sheehan this week, narrowed the top two's lead after his line-up won £170,250 at the weekend. Brian Fitzpatrick's Niblicks jumped from 15th to sixth overall while Gordon Mills' Paco 10 also made a considerable leap upwards, moving from 24th to 12th. One of the week's biggest movers was Charles Daly of Dungarvan, Co Waterford who just missed out on winning a fourball but has seen his Lee's Lot line-up move up from 78th overall to 13th. Meanwhile, Dublin's Conor McAlister saw his Pork Shops go in the opposite direction - after winning just £67,350 they dropped from 14th to 51st overall. The average score for our teams in Week 13 was £80,880 while the average overall earnings are £933,024.

For all those managers still dreaming of making miraculous comebacks to snatch that £10,000 at the death look no further than the example set by Michael McManamon in the 1996 competition.

With just one week to go Michael's Mac 1 were in sixth place and almost £100,000 behind the leader, Mike Mannion of Galway, but after five of his line-up won over £260,000 at the European Open in Kildare, our Dublin manager leapt to first place overall and won himself £10,000.

And look who's top of our weekly leaderboard - none other than our 1996 winner. Michael's Fairway Kings won just under £300,000 at the weekend, £180,000 of which came from the top two at the Deutsche Bank Open - winner Lee Westwood and runner-up Darren Clarke. Brandel Chamblee picked up another £52,500 for his share of fifth place at the Memorial, with the rest of the team's earnings coming from David Howell (joint seventh in Germany), Jean Van de Velde, Miles Tunnicliff and Andrew Coltart.

The Fairway Kings are the best of Michael's 10 entries this year, currently lying 377th overall. So is he timing his run to perfection once again? "Well, same again would be alright, wouldn't it," he said, hopefully. There's a bit of work to be done yet, though, by the Fairway Kings and Michael reckons Kevin Barry's line-up has that winning look about it. We shall see. If anyone had had the good fortune to enter the following line-up - Jim Furyk, Darren Clarke, Patrik Sjoland, Santiago Luna, John Huston, Glen Day and Bob Estes - at the start of the competition we would probably be sending them that £10,000 cheque already. The Team we wanted to enter `but the rules forbid us' (as we call it here at Golf Masters' HQ) has earned £2,269,857 to date, just a few pounds ahead of Kevin Barry. And what we could have done with £10,000 (hindsight - and results to date - are a wonderful thing).

While we carry on dreaming the rest of you can look forward to Week 14s tournaments, the Kemper Open (from which Tiger Woods has withdrawn with a back injury) and the English Open at Hanbury Manor.