It is important to get this out of the way at an early stage, release the pain. It will be cathartic for the 12 fantasy golf aficionados who committed the cardinal sin of transferring out of their teams either Colin Montgomerie or Loren Roberts. Six people rid themselves of Monty and coincidentally another six dispensed with the services of Roberts.
It is simply too horrible to comprehend that there may have been an overlap and that someone could inadvertently have transferred out both the winner of the Benson and Hedges International at the Oxfordshire (Montgomerie) and the winner of the Byron Nelson Classic (Roberts). To protect the innocent we would not dream of revealing any names but if you are one of the dirty dozen, commiserations.
Montgomerie's return to form will have pleased roughly 5,000 participants in the Dream Tour, particularly Raheny's Tom Murray, who just days prior to the Scots golfer's latest success fumed: "Of course I am far from impressed with the efforts of Colin Montgomerie, costing £5.5 million, who has produced a return of £94,500 in the seven weeks he was available."
Russell also went on to chide Mattias Gronberg, Peter O'Malley and Mark McNulty, putting pen to paper. Fortunately for two of that trio they began to pull their weight somewhat with the Swede earning £24,500 and the Australian £18,375: McNulty was definitely a cause for concern last week (£750).
David Randell became the first person to retain the overall leadership last week but a third sojourn at the top proved beyond him as he slipped to sixth place. The new leader is William Brennan, who has previously led the competition. A change of name for his team seems to have worked wonders as Follow the Sun 2 moves from second to first.
Brennan will be pleased with the contribution of his Irish golfer, Eamonn Darcy who managed £50,667 but it is American Steve Pate - he finished second at the Byron Nelson Classic - to whom he is especially grateful in more ways than one as he explains: "I played a little bit of golf in my time but a back injury forced me to stop. I have a huge interest and I like to have a wager at weekends.
"Myself and a few other guys backed Steve Pate to win at 66 to 1 and in fairness it proved great value. In terms of choosing the team I thought that there are more events played in America and the three majors are there so I opted for six Americans. It is a long road ahead with the pack closing in so we'll have to wait and see what happens in September." But it is to Darcy and Pate (£80,000) that Brennan has reason to be thankful. The next best of the eight teams that he has entered is in 74th place.
But in terms of value for money few can match Stillorgan's Pat Corby. He boasts three teams in the top 10 (third, seventh, and ninth) and eight in the top 50 (12th, 16th, 17th, 22nd, 43rd).
To Deirdre McGrath the plaudits, a Fourball in Mount Juliet and a polo shirt. She has finished top of the weekly leaderboard with an excellent £380,292. Montgomerie (£150,000) and Sweden's Per Ulrik Johansson (£112,500) contributed handsomely.
This week the action moves to the Deutsche Bank Open which finishes on Monday and the Colonial Classic.
