Webb snares his second fourball

Well, Darren Clarke came close enough, finishing seventh at the K Club, but we must wait at least another year for an Irish winner of an Irish tournament, so we've put our bonus prize money back in the Golf Masters' safe. This, sadly, will come as bad news to one of our Galway managers, John O'Neill.

"I really hate seeing good money go to waste, so is there any chance ye might deposit that unused £250,000 bonus prize in the account of my useless shower of bowsies, thus doubling their overall earnings to date in one fell swoop? You'd make a disheartened manager (not to mention a humiliated one) very, very happy. If not, a polo shirt will do."

We opted for the polo shirt in the end, John, because even if we slipped you the £250,000 your bowsies would probably still be outside the top 19,000, so there would be no significant long-term gain. At least a polo shirt will last you forever, if it isn't stolen from your washing line by a fellow manager.

Neale Webb of Blackrock, Co Dublin, won't have to stoop to banditry to get himself a shiny new 2000 Golf Masters polo shirt, nor does he need us to cook the books to boost his team account. ("But is he happy," we can hear John ask.)

Neale was one of 144 managers to have Lee Westwood and Robert Allenby, winners of week 19's European and Western Opens, in his team. What separated him from the 143 non-fourball-winners were the contributions of Angel Cabrera and Jose Coceres (second and 13th at the K Club), with Niclas Fasth, Matt Gogel and Gary Murphy bringing the team total to a hefty £421,063 (that loud bang was John fainting).

Neale, a member at Carrickmines Golf Club, is no stranger to this fourball-winning business; he won one two years ago. "But that was a complete fluke," he admitted. "I selected my team on the basis of people's funny names - Duffy Waldorf, Mark Wiebe - but I didn't know them from Adam. This time I've been a bit more scientific. Actually, I think I've discovered how to play this game now." (He then told us, confidentially, his secret: "Don't waste your transfers on minnows, use them to move the big boys in and out.")

Incidentally, we've spotted a fishy theme developing at the top of our overall and weekly leaderboards recently. Fionnuala McMahon is going well with a team named after a monkfish dish - Mystic Monks - and Neale's success in week 19 is down to Dublin Bay Prawns. What next? Parnevik's Periwinkles? Stricker's Scallops? Mickelson's Muscles?

There was plenty more movement on our overall leaderboard this week, with Michael Delaney of Portlaoise taking over at the top from Colin Rutherford. F V Murphy is up from 13th to third, Brian Murnaghan's Tiger Streak rose from 10th to fifth and Ger O'Donnell's Chancers jumped 23 places to 10th. Keep an eye, too, on Mark Morris - he finished fourth on our weekly leaderboard last week and is in at 13 on this week's overall leaderboard.

There's just a week to go to our penultimate double-your-money tournament of the year - the British Open - so if you have any transfers left get your thinking caps on.

Meanwhile, the Loch Lomond International (which got under way yesterday) and the Greater Milwaukee Open are week 20's tournaments. Will John O'Neill's bowsies do him proud? Very probably not.