Neale confident of retaining his lead

Back in 1995 a golfing greenhorn by the name of Padraig Harrington turned professional, leaving us hoping he had something to fall back on.

An amateur, saddled with the moniker Tiger Woods, played in all four majors, his best finish a miserly share of 41st at the Masters - no future there.

Robbie Williams left a globe-full of teeny girls distraught when he left Take That, never, we predicted, to be heard of again. Sony launched the Playstation, a gadget, we prophesised, that was destined for the shelf marked 'utterly useless inventions'. And England helped themselves to a Five Nation's Grand Slam - the last time, we forecast, they'd be even close to that level of Euro-rugby domination again.

Where are they all now? Exactly.

So, then, the only survivor of note from 1995 is: the Golf Masters. Yes, hard to fathom, but we're nine this year and - at the risk of sounding immodest - we think we're wearing well. A tummy tuck here and a trip to the gym there and you'd hardly notice we were 12 months short of a decade on this planet.

In total, 14,234 of you decided to join in on our ninth birthday celebrations, roughly 14,232 more than our highly paid consultants told us we'd attract at this stage of our lives. They're emptying their desks as we speak.

True, the 148 of you whose teams earned zero euro at the Madeira Island Open and Bay Hill Invitational in week one are wondering why you bothered, but we can offer you a message of hope: the only way is up.

Contrarily, "the only way is down," as our first weekly winner, Neale Webb, conceded. "I'm king for a day - as somebody once said, 'when you're part of a mule train and you ain't the lead mule, the view never changes." Certainly, but thanks to the efforts of Mario Lanza in our first week Neale, of Blackrock, Co Dublin (and a Three Rock Rovers Hockey Club stalwart), is looking at his third fourball success in five years, rather than the rear-end of a mule.

Neale, 17th overall last year, was a fourball winner in 1998 and 2000 but this year he's off to the K Club, host to all our 2003 victors. He has Bradley Dredge, the Madeira Island Open winner, Stewart Cink and Brad Faxon, who took a share of second at the Bay Hill, to thank, primarily, for his day out, but he's also indebted to Aaron Baddley, JL Lewis, Mikko Ilonen and Gary Murphy who added another a139,933 to Mario's haul.

Commiserations to Martin MacGowan (Drumshambo), Peter Ward (Glendalough), Frank Brady (Naas) and Ger Nolan (Portlaoise) for narrowly missing out on our first weekly prize (which includes snazzy golfing attire from Cutter and Buck) but we have bad news for you all: Neale is supremely confident about retaining his lead for the next 26 weeks. "What I want to know is: do I have to spend the whole a5,000 at the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados, or can I spend it another time," he asked. That confident? "Oh yes, I'm virtually clearing the dates now. I've got a secret formula this year but it won't be divulged until I'm actually in the air, heading for Barbados." And with that he settled down for our first bonus tournament of the year, the Players' Championship. If you spent a large chunk of your budget on Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson and/or Thomas Bjorn.they've all withdrawn (wrist injury, imminent arrival of twins, birth of third child, respectively). Honest, things will get better.