More popular than we thought

There we were on Monday morning contemplating sending a polo shirt to every employer of Paul Lawrie, so sure were we that only a handful of you had him in your teams. But, having checked the figures, we had to give up on the polo shirt idea because we don't have 1,914 to spare.

Yes, Lawrie's British Open success added £200,000 to the accounts of almost 10 per cent of our teams, making him our eighth most popular player (behind Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington, Paul McGinley, Bernhard Langer, Greg Norman, Frank Lickliter and Wayne Riley). You're a wily lot. Better still, 75 of you had both Lawrie and joint-runner-up Justin Leonard in your line-ups but nobody had Jean Van de Velde because he lost his Golf Masters' card at the end of last season. We're not claiming it will make up for his Carnoustie nightmare but we can at least confirm that his share of second place will mean he will enter the new millennium having regained his card.

Only one manager had Lawrie, Leonard and Angel Cabrera (joint fourth) in his line-up, so, not surprisingly, he won himself a fourball. Frank Starken of Athlone has lost count of the number of times he narrowly missed out on winning a trip to Mount Juliet since the competition got under way five years ago but a team total of £493,000 from the British Open finally did the trick.

By the time the play-off got under way on Sunday evening Frank's team had already won £143,000 through the efforts of Cabrera, Padraig Harrington (29th), David Carter and Sandy Lyle, both of whom missed the cut. Lawrie and Leonard then added another £350,000 to the team score, clinching top spot on the weekly leaderboard.

Commiserations to Daniel O'Leary of Rathfarnham and Michael O'Neill of Newry who both topped the £470,000 earning mark in week 20 but have nothing to show for it (except a polo shirt). A special mention too for fifth placed Dermot McHugh of Glenties whose team did him proud, despite being named `Savage Brittle Pathetic Bad'. There's no change in our top three after the British Open but having seen his lead eroded over the past few weeks, David Maune finally outscored Pat Corby's second-placed team, widening the gap by £12,500 to £82,312.

Retief Goosen was David's top earner at the weekend, winning £62,000 for his share of 11th place, but, because Pat also has the South African in his top two line-ups, it was left to Colin Montgomerie to once again strengthen Cremorne 1's grip on first place - he collected £48,000 for a joint 15th finish. Hal Sutton, who tied for 11th, came good for both Pat's top three line-ups and he now has four teams in the top 20 (and seven in the top 50) after Blackbirds 8 rose from 13th to ninth and Lapwings 4 jumped 33 places to 16th.

There was plenty of movement outside the top three, with Roger Mullarkey's Twilight Zone climbing from 20th to fourth (they were the 262nd top earners in week 20) and Sue's Strugglers, managed by Declan O'Neill, moving from 11th to fifth - both teams featured Lawrie. Aonghus McGann's Adare 99 dropped out of the top 50 last week but has returned in 11th place, while Pat Casey's Euro Stars rose from 45th to 12th overall.

It's back to regular prize money this week at the Dutch Open and the John Deere Classic in Illinois. Lawrie's managers might not be too pleased to hear he's pulled out of the Dutch Open due to "mental and physical exhaustion" but, then again, you'll probably forgive him anything after his Carnoustie heroics.

For those with a transfer or two still in hand take note that the next-to-penultimate bonus tournament of the competition (when you win one and half times the regular prize money), the European Open at the K Club, is one of week 22's tournaments.

After that there are just two more opportunities to earn extra money - the USPGA Championship in week 24 (double money) and the British Masters (the final bonus tournament) in week 28.