Henry Meller produced a personal-best round at Palmares, on TEG's first visit to the course. He finished at -3 on the net and +17 gross, his best figures on both counts. The card does not read like a personal best. Meller had gone into the day propping up the Wooden Spoon race. Holes 9 through 11 then passed without a single net par: a triple bogey at the 9th, followed by two double bogeys, seven gross shots gone. His position at the foot of the standings looked, at that point, entirely secure. A double bogey at the 15th duly dropped him to the bottom of the Spoon outright, from third to fifth.

Then he simply stopped losing shots. The 16th and the 17th came and went without a blemish, and the round stood as his best of the tournament by a distance. It also shunted David Mullin into last place in the Spoon instead, with the gap to safety cut from eight strokes to two. A day that had looked entirely lost, quietly converted into something else.

David Mullin's fourth round in the Algarve was an exercise in keeping the good news and the bad news in separate rooms. He held top spot in the Green Jacket race, extending his overall command even as the margin there narrowed from 14 strokes to 12. Everywhere else, the ground gave way. In the Trophy he fell from first place after round one all the way to fifth. And in the Wooden Spoon, a quadruple-bogey nine at the par-5 6th sent him from fourth to bottom of the table, swapping places with Henry Meller, the gap back up to the field cut from eight strokes to two. A nine at a par 5 is not misfortune. It is a body of work.

There was recovery, of a sort. A triple bogey at the 9th, a bogey at the 10th, a double bogey at the 11th. Then he birdied the 12th, and birdied the par-5 13th as well. Two consecutive holes without dropping a gross shot. He might reasonably have expected applause. Instead the damage elsewhere caught up with him.