GOLF:WELL, Luke Donald's play-off defeat to Brandt Snedeker at The Heritage last Sunday might have cost him the chance to become world number one and, more importantly, deprived his managers of a few extra points, but as captain of Weekend in Bilbao he still did enough to keep Claire Deasy at the top of the monthly and overall leaderboards.
Donald is now our leading scorer after three weeks of tournaments, moving ahead of Charl Schwartzel. Donald, Schwartzel and Jason Day are the only players on our list to top the 700 points mark so far.
Peter Lawrie (tied for second at the China Open) and Day (took a share of ninth at The Heritage) were Claire’s other big contributors, although Day, having been in contention with opening rounds of 69 and 65, nigh on ruined Claire’s weekend by finishing with a 71 and 72.
But at least Day hung on for a top-10 finish: YE Yang followed his first-round 68 at the China Open with a 75 to miss the cut and cost Weekend in Bilbao three points.
Kevin Vaughan suffered no such woes in week three – well, apart from Ian Poulter failing to break into the top-30 in China. The rest of the active line-up, though, did enough to make Kev 2 our leading team of the week. Captain Donald led the way, followed by Lawrie, Ben Crane, Danny Willett and Richard Finch, who all had top-10 finishes on Sunday.
Kevin, then, wins himself a dapper Fantasy Golf polo shirt and moves up to 211th in the monthly and overall standings. Remember, each monthly winner – and, needless to say, our first monthly leaderboard is the same as the overall – wins a night away and a round of golf at one of the country’s finest golfing resorts – including Druids Glen, Killeen Castle and Dunboyne Castle Hotel.
Week four’s counting tournaments are the Ballantine’s Championship and the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, with Donald headlining the latter as he tries again to top that ranking list.
His form – and busy schedule – make him one of the three most hired players on the list in the past week, along with Justin Rose and Steve Stricker. At the other end of the scale, as of yesterday, Martin Kaymer, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy are the most fired.
McIlroy, of course, is on a break at the moment, but scheduled to return at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow in week five. Tiger Woods’ managers, we trust, have heard the news that he has withdrawn from that tournament because of minor ligament and tendon injuries.
There is no word on when he will return, but his agent Mark Steinberg said there was a “reasonable chance” he would be back for the Players’ Championship next month.
Whether that’s enough to persuade the 14 per cent of managers who chose Woods from Group Two to stick with him, we’ll see. The Players’ Championship, after all, is our next bonus tournament, offering twice the regular points. Decisions, decisions.
To access the competition on our website (irishtimes.com/fantasygolf) each week you need to enter a pin code – this week’s code is “albatross”.
