Golf: We have this rule of thumb at Golf Masters HQ - it's only when every one of our teams finally registers a euro or two in winnings that we feel the competition is up and running
Before that, we're inclined to believe that this little contest of ours is still in its infancy, crawling aimlessly through its formative stages, with managers still sizing each other up and learning how to distinguish between serial cut-missers and persistent top-10-finishers.
Now, naturally enough, we don't want to put any pressure on Tom (Blessington, Co Wicklow), Greg (Ballinlough, Co Cork) or Sonia (Listowel, the Kingdom), but - how do we say this without causing offence? - we're three weeks and four tournaments into the 2003 Golf Masters. And how much have Tom, Greg and Sonia won between them? Divil a euro. Frankly, there's only so long you can wait for things to run in an upwardly manner.
A gentle reminder to Tom, Greg and Sonia: the final tournaments of the 2003 competition are the German Masters and the Pennsylvania Classic in late September. That, then, is your euro-winning deadline.
Perhaps, to give them the benefit of the doubt, the trio have adopted the "more haste, less speed" tactical approach to this year's battle, deciding to let their close-to-13,000 rivals get a headstart, lulling them into a false sense of overall leaderboard security, before producing a managerial spurt to pounce spectacularly in the closing stages of the race for a holiday in Sandy Lane, Barbados.
But, and again we mean no offence, by our reckoning the best they could hope for, at this rate, is a weekend for one on the Sandy Row, Belfast.
Tom, Greg and Sonia's misfortune is that they have teams comprised of players plucked from our Golf Masters list of 90 who have yet to break their duck. They could, of course, have opted to use one of their 10 available transfers, but, perchance, they feel the same about player-swapping as last week's fourball winner, John Barry. "I won't be changing players, that's a lot of work - I don't know how to do the bucking thing anyway, it's highly technical," as he put it.
So, what are Tom, Greg and Sonia's hopes of getting off the mark in Augusta? Well, in two of their cases, barring a last minute transfer or two: none. Sonia, at least, has Masters' field-member Miguel Angel Jimenez on board, but Tom and Greg have not a single soul who has made it in to the 93 strong field.
Tom O'Halloran of Celbridge, Co Kildare, has no such Golf Masters' worries - his Monkey 3 line-up has just won him a fourball at the K Club thanks to their display at the BellSouth Classic, where Ben Crane triumphed, despite not even being in possession of a Golf Masters tour card.
Nine managers have passed the (avert your eyes, Tom, Greg and Sonia) a500,000 mark, headed by our new overall leader David Gorman of Cabinteely. All will hope for a prosperous Masters where double-your- regular-Golf-Masters-money is on offer for the first time this year. Those who paid a3.1 million for Thomas Bjorn, only for him to withdraw from the tournament following the birth of his twins, will say: Grrrrrrr.
