Plenty of time still remaining to rise up the leaderboard

The Irish Times Golf Masters:If you are one of the many managers who have written off their chances of scooping an overall prize at the end of the season, then perhaps you should think again.

We dipped into the archive this week to see how the ultimate prize winners in 2006 were faring on the eve of the British Open. The eventual champion, John Belton, was lying in eighth position with The Vacuums.

Runner-up JJ Comerford was in 98th position with Village People 1. Kieran's Heroes, managed by Kieran Diviney, were in third which is also where they finished.

Comerford was clearly the biggest gainer among that trio but a look just a little further down the leaderboard shows what is possible.

In the last seven weeks of the 2006 campaign, Comerford rose 443 places with Village People 7 who finished seventh and Jim McGlynn rose 3,615 spots to 46th with Macker 2.

The mad thing is that McGlynn finished the season without using his full quota of transfers.

He could have made more changes before the British Open when only two of the top 1,000 teams before Hoylake included Tiger Woods.

Only three managers in the whole competition brought in Woods that week despite the fact that he was defending champion and his previous finish had been tied-second in the Western Open.

Now do you think if Woods gets off to a bad start at Carnoustie this week that he will throw his hat at it?

Not a chance.

He will grind to the end and see where it takes him. With a top prize of €20,000, shouldn't you do the same?

golfmasters@irish-times.ie