Verily, Varley has vanished

Eight weeks gone, 21 to go and we're just about a quarter the way through our Golf Masters' schedule of tournaments: 13 complete, 38 left to play. And for the eighth successive week we have ourselves a new overall leader after Kim Pearse jumped from 17th to first with earnings of over £180,000 at the Spanish Open and the Greater Greensboro Classic last weekend.

The average score in week eight was £70,754 (bringing the overall average to £439,757), well up on last week's figure but just £754 more than Paul McGinley won for his share of second place in Spain behind winner Jarmo Sandelin. McGinley began the competition as our second most popular player but, judging by recent activity on the transfer market, he's close to overtaking Darren Clarke at the top of the most hired list.

Clarke, who recently announced he was taking "several" weeks off, has been axed by 430 managers since week one, while McGinley's return to action on the European Tour has prompted another 100 managers to add him to their line-ups: he now features in 5,383 teams, just 167 fewer than Clarke.

Most ex-Clarke employers, though, have chosen to replace him with Des Smyth (he's been transferred into 278 teams since the competition started) which, so far, has made pretty good business sense: Smyth costs £2.8 million less than Clarke but, after eight weeks, has won £45,000 more.

The first appearance of the 1999 Golf Masters' season by eight of our players last week - Peter O'Malley, Michael Campbell, Mark McNulty, Mathias Gronberg, Per Haugsrud, Greg Turner, Olle Karlsson and David Ogrin - would have come as a mighty relief to their frustrated managers, but only O'Malley (joint ninth in Spain) and Campbell (joint 25th) made the wait worthwhile; the rest won just £7,625 between them. Top manager of the week was Brian Varley, but if he wants to collect his prize of a four-ball in Mount Juliet he better contact us (at the competition help-line: 01-2844060) because he forgot to leave a number or address.

Quite a few of our managers forgot to leave not only contact numbers and addresses, but their names, too, when they registered. So, if you think you might be one of them, ring the number again (it's the same one printed in the bottom right of the page for transfers) and leave your details. Otherwise the dreaded No Name Given will appear on the leader-board when your team finally springs to life one week.

Brian Varley had a real dream of a Golf Masters' weekend, thanks to Sandelin, McGinley, Ignacio Garrido (who tied with McGinley and Miguel Angel Jimenez for second in Spain), Jeff Maggert (third at the Greater Greensboro), Alex Cejka and Michael Campbell (joint ninth and 25th, respectively, at the Spanish Open), bringing the team total to £359,750. Commiserations to the runner-up on the weekly leader-board, our old Golf Masters' friend Matthew Ryan of Castletroy, Co Limerick, who finished second overall in the 1997 competition, just £11,000 short of winner Edward Staunton.

The name of his team then? Tiger Tenacious 2. The name of this week's runner-up? Tiger Tenacious 2. One of these days, Matthew, you'll strike gold, rather than silver. Trust us. Then there was Michael Kilkenny (of Killiney, Co Dublin) who mentioned in his letter how desperately unlucky he was not to win a four-ball a couple of weeks back (finishing only £81,000 short of the winning total). "I am sure you have twigged, having read the above words, that what I am trying to say is that . . . (spit it out Michael) . . . is that I think I would look well in a Golf Masters polo shirt coming to the 18th green in Old Conna in a few weeks time when we open our brand new clubhouse (May 15th). It would be fitting indeed for me to be in my best finery for this gala occasion and for The Irish Times to be associated on the day."

They'll stop at nothing, this crowd, but we're always happy to reward a good grovel with a dapper polo shirt, so, okay Michael, there's one in the post. Good luck at week nine's tournaments, the Italian and Houston Opens.