Gregg Williams won the TEG 16 Green Jacket at +66, sixteen shots clear of David Mullin. It is the lowest gross total he has recorded in a TEG, the best of his career on that measure.

It was not achieved cleanly. Troia, a first visit for the field, was where he leaked most: four holes without a net par from the 8th, then three consecutive double bogeys at 13, 14 and 15, six shots to par surrendered in a row and no sign of anybody stopping it. He signed for 94. At Penha Longa the next day he made a triple at the 3rd and a double at the 4th, then a birdie at the 5th to steady things, then a bogey, a triple and a double through 6 to 8 to unsteady them again. The round only settled late: five holes from the 11th without dropping a gross shot, including nine Stableford points across 13 to 15. His 87 was five worse than his previous best there.

The finish was the point. At Estoril he ran three pars from the 6th for another nine points, dropped a double at the 9th, and took eight at the par-four 14th. He still went round in 80, six better than his 86 there in TEG 15 and a course best. Mullin returned the same number on the same afternoon, which rather took the shine off the exclusivity, if not the Jacket.

David Mullin's tournament turned on a single afternoon. His third round at Penha Longa, the Robert Trent Jones Jr. mountain parkland at Sintra, came apart for a gross 98 and 30 Stableford points, thirteen strokes worse than his last visit and thirteen adrift of the 85 he had posted there in TEG 15. The damage was concentrated at the 16th, the hardest hole on the card, where he took eight for no points at all. He then made two pars to finish, which is the golfing equivalent of straightening the pictures on the way out of a burning house.

What followed at Estoril was the best round TEG has recorded on the Mackenzie Ross parkland. Mullin went round in 80 gross, taking six strokes off the previous course record of 86 set across six earlier visits, and beating his own 94 there from TEG 15 by fourteen. It was worth 45 points, a fifteen-point improvement on the day before.

It was not untroubled. A birdie at the 2nd and a par at the 3rd gave way to bogeys at the 4th and 5th and a double bogey at the 6th, before a birdie at the 7th arrested the decline. The scoring came in a burst through the middle: a bogey at the 11th and pars at the 12th and 13th brought nine points in three holes, and he closed with pars at the 16th and 17th.

For context on how far he had travelled, Mullin had been bottom of the TEG 16 Wooden Spoon race by the 10th hole of round one, after a triple bogey at Oitavos Dunes.

Alex Baker took the TEG 16 Wooden Spoon with 127 points, and collected two course-worst marks en route, which suggests a man committed to leaving a mark on the record books by any available method.

The first arrived at once. His 113 gross at Oitavos Dunes in round one is the highest score recorded on the course, beating the previous worst of 111 set across twelve earlier visits. Three holes did most of it: a nine at the 1st, another nine at the 11th, and a ten at the 17th. It was also ten strokes worse than his own best at Oitavos, the 103 he posted in TEG 15.

Troia, new to the roster, offered him a five-hole slide from the 13th to the 17th in which he dropped thirteen shots to par. Penha Longa produced a 106, level with his best previous round there, and by that stage level was a triumph.

Estoril supplied the second record. Baker opened with a nine at the 1st, added an eight at the 3rd and a nine at the 6th, and between the 5th and the 10th leaked fourteen shots, three of those holes passing without a net par. Then came the 12th. Eleven strokes. A septuple bogey, and the worst score relative to par he has recorded on any hole in TEG history. The round finished at 107 gross, above Estoril's previous worst of 106 from six prior visits, and eight strokes adrift of the 99 he shot there in TEG 15. Two courses will remember him. Neither fondly.

The third round at Penha Longa, the Atlantic Course at Sintra, dismantled both Bakers in the same place, at the same time, with no apparent discrimination between them. The trouble began at the 11th, a par 4 and the hardest hole on the card, where Jon Baker and Alex Baker each made 6. It deepened at the 12th, a par 5 rated stroke index 17 and therefore, on paper, the gentlest hole on the property. Jon took 10, a quintuple bogey. Alex took 9. The stroke index had clearly been drawn up by an optimist.

Neither man found the exit quickly. Jon followed with a quadruple-bogey 8 at the 13th, completing a three-hole run from the 11th that cost him 11 shots to par and yielded exactly one Stableford point. Alex made 7 at the 13th and 7 again at the 14th, twelve shots dropped across four holes, with no net par anywhere between the 12th and the 14th.

Jon signed for 97 at a course where he had previously gone round in 85, twelve strokes better than this. Alex signed for 106, which matched his own best score at Penha Longa, set back in TEG 8. Consistency of a sort.

Jon's difficulties travelled with him to Estoril the following day, where he took 8 at the par-4 11th, the second-hardest hole there. It is a measure of the round that he still came home in 93, three shots better than his previous best at the course.