If keeping your emotions in check is an important component in the makeup of any champion golfer then it is surprising that Gerard Kirwan is bothering with Golf Masters at all. Why should he when he could be gunning for a place on Europe's Ryder Cup team?
We caught up with Gerard on Monday evening armed with the good news that his Team 3 had not only fared better than his Team 1 and Team 2 selections in week eight of the season, but had also seen off the best efforts of the 11,858 other entries in our competition.
After a weekend churning figures, the few joys left to a Golf Masters employee include handing out a few discretionary polo shirts and informing the weekly winner that a fourball at the Heritage Club is on the horizon.
The joy was short lived this week as Gerard sounded underwhelmed by the news.
His pulse didn't race, his spirits didn't soar and he certainly didn't weep for joy. Denis Fitzgerald may have painted Dundalk red when he won a fortnight ago but the citizens of Newcastlewest could rest easy after Gerard's success.
Sure it's no big deal. He only has a few teams in the competition and he isn't really tracking their progress. Even though Team 3 rose 6,679 places this week they are still outside the top-1000 overall.
Only an outside chance of a major prize then and didn't he win a fourball at The K Club a couple of years ago?
Pressed to explain his apparent ennui, Gerard stifled a yawn and admitted to being a bit jet lagged. Immediately we thought we understood. He had been over in China keeping an eye on Team 3 members Paul McGinley and Simon Dyson in the Asian Open.
Dyson's final-round collapse and the long flight home had left him drained. Or he had caught the red-eye from Texas where two more of his employees, Sergio Garcia and Dudley Hart, contested the play-off for the Byron Nelson Championship.
In fact neither was the case.
Along with 22 other members of the golf society based around the Villager pub in Castlemahon, Gerard was just back from a week's golfing holiday in Spain. He admitted that after playing well for a couple of days, "either the beer or the heat" got to him and his form tailed off. Jet lag indeed!
Well when he is suitably revived, we are sure that he will enjoy bringing three friends along to the Heritage where another of the summer's fourballs will comprise course designer Seve Ballesteros, Padraig Harrington, Vijay Singh and John Daly.
They will play an exhibition the day after the British Open and unlike Gerard, they won't be wearing a Cutter & Buck Golf Masters shirt.
We will hand one out to Gerard King whose "Full Swing" team ranked third this week which was the highest of the 12 teams to include both tournament winners, Garcia and Miguel Angel Jimenez.
All 12 have made considerable progress up the overall standings which is more than can be said for the 324 teams who scored nothing at all. Everyone can do better this week as we have bonus money on offer at the Deutsche Bank TPC of Europe and regular money at The Colonial.
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