David Mullin won the TEG 10 Green Jacket at +51 gross, 12 clear of Jon Baker. It is the lowest gross total ever returned in a TEG, and his own best.

The matter was largely settled on the opening day. At Boavista, on his eleventh visit, Mullin went round in 75 gross, +4. It is the best gross round in TEG history and a new course record, beating the previous mark of 82 set across 50 prior visits. It was also 23 strokes better than his last outing there. The same round yielded 49 Stableford points, the second-best round TEG has seen. Across the four days he recorded 6 birdies or better and 34 pars or better, both all-time records.

He was not immaculate. Having taken 42 points in round two at Palmares - Praia / Alvor, he managed 31 on the Alvor / Lagos loop the next day, a drop of 11, and closed that round with a quadruple-bogey 8 at the par-four 18th. Even the man rewriting the record book is entitled to one lapse of concentration on a closing hole.

Jon Baker had the better of him once. His +10 gross at Palmares - Praia / Alvor in round two is the third-best gross round in TEG history. Baker also posted a personal-best gross total of +63 and a Boavista personal best of 86 in round four, improving on his previous 90. At no point did any of this trouble the leader.

Stuart Neumann arrived in the Algarve with a decade of Boavista behind him, ten prior visits and a best gross of 82 from TEG 5, and discovered that the closing hole had entered his life as an administrative problem. In round one at Boavista he took 10 at the last. Six over par, at a stroke index 5 hole, for nothing. Twenty-four hours later, on the first ever TEG visit to the Praia/Alvor loop at Palmares, he did it again. Another 10 at the 18th, another six over, another blank. These are two different holes on two different courses, and no hole in his career has ever cost him more shots against par than either of them. They arrived in consecutive rounds, like a debt and its interest.

The Palmares round did not reserve its unpleasantness for the finish. He was five over at the 13th for a 10, five over again at the 14th for a 9, and three over at the 15th. Thirteen shots in three holes, not one of them producing a net par. What makes it remarkable is what came directly before: par, bogey, par, par from the 9th to the 12th, 14 Stableford points in four holes. For a quarter of an hour the round looked entirely governable.

It closed at 105. His best of the trip, a 98, waited politely until the return to Boavista in round four.

John Patterson collected the TEG 10 Wooden Spoon, finishing on 112 points after four rounds in the Algarve.

The ruin came in isolated detonations rather than gradual decay. Boavista's par-five 8th claimed him twice: a 10 in the opening round, then an 11 in the final round, the highest score he has ever recorded on a par five. On both occasions he left with nothing written down. In between, the 1st at Palmares — Praia / Alvor took a 10 off him in round two, and the 8th at Palmares — Alvor / Lagos another 10 in round three.

That third round holds the worst of it. From the 11th to the 15th he went triple bogey, quintuple bogey, triple bogey, quadruple bogey, quadruple bogey. Nineteen shots dropped in five holes. Five holes without a net par. One Stableford point extracted from the entire enterprise.

The return to Boavista brought no clemency. Beyond the 11 at the 8th, he took 8 at the 10th and 9 at the closing hole, finishing on 21 points and 40 over gross. Both are the worst figures of his career, as a round and in gross terms.

His best gross of the four days was the 102 in round one at Boavista, on what was his first visit to a course the group has now played twelve times. He will have the other eleven to think about.

Gregg Williams came to the Algarve and played the best scoring golf of his TEG career. His gross total of +76 is the lowest he has ever recorded at a TEG. This is not a consolation prize; it is genuinely his high-water mark.

The peak arrived in the second round, on the Praia/Alvor nines at Palmares, a course entirely new to everyone. Williams signed for 48 points, a personal best, and a gross of +14 that was also the finest round of his career by that measure. The scoring came in a five-hole burst from the 8th: pars at the 8th, 9th and 11th, a birdie at the 10th, which carries stroke index 4, and a bogey at the 12th. Eighteen points in five holes.

It had not begun in that spirit. On the opening day at Boavista he took nine at the 18th, a par four, a quintuple bogey worth precisely nothing.

Boavista offered a tidier farewell. Williams had played the course ten times before this TEG, with a previous best gross of 97. In the final round he went round in 93, a course best and three strokes better than his 96 there in round one.

None of it, in the end, was enough to beat Alex Baker.