John Patterson's four days ran to extremes. He opened with a 96 at Praia D'El Rey, good enough to lead the Trophy race, then went to West Cliffs and signed for 116: a gross round of +44, the worst of his career to date, and 19 strokes more than he had taken on his only previous visit to the links.

The damage was concentrated in one stretch. Between the 8th and the 15th he dropped 27 shots in eight holes: a double, three triple bogeys, another double, a 10 at the par-five 13th and an 11 at the par-five 15th. That 11, six over par, is the worst score relative to par he has recorded on any hole in TEG. He had to travel a long way into the round to find it, and he found it. The triple bogey at the 10th dropped him to the bottom of the TEG 17 Wooden Spoon race.

Royal Óbidos brought the correction, and it was a proper one. Patterson went from 22 points in Round 2 to 41 in Round 3, a swing of 19, and his 94 was a course personal best, seven strokes better than his previous visit there. For one afternoon he looked like a man who had solved something.

The recovery did not hold. Back at Praia D'El Rey for the final round, he ran up a 10 at the par-four 15th, the stroke index three hole, another six-over sextuple bogey and another blank on the card, undoing much of what Round 3 had rebuilt.

Alex Baker found something to lose in all four rounds of TEG 17 on the Lisbon Coast, and the worst of it came first. His opening 114 at Praia D'El Rey is the highest gross round ever recorded at the course, beating the previous worst of 110 set across 24 prior visits. The centrepiece was a 10 at the par-4 5th, stroke index 2, a sextuple bogey inside the first hour. He had made his position clear while the field was still applying sunscreen.

Round two at West Cliffs was quieter but still leaky: ten shots gone across holes 9 to 11, with quadruple bogeys at the 10th and 11th, then eight more over 13 to 15. It was, oddly, his best round of the tournament in relative terms. His 105 there is a personal best at West Cliffs, five shots better than his only previous visit, which says rather more about the other three rounds than it does about the 105.

Royal Óbidos produced another 10, this time at the par-4 14th in round three. Then came the return to Praia D'El Rey, where Baker bled 25 shots between the 5th and the 13th, a nine-hole run without a single hole played in better than double bogey. Nine holes. Not one of them recoverable. Quadruple bogeys at the par-5 12th and the 13th ended a three-hole stretch without a net par.

His 111 in that final round was the best of his four scores, but still eleven off his course best of 100, set at TEG 9. The bucket was smaller by then. It was still a bucket with a hole in it.

Gregg Williams, the back-to-back Jacket champion, a man with four Trophy wins already in the cabinet, finished TEG 17 on 123 Stableford points. That was enough to hand him the TEG 17 Wooden Spoon.

The damage was concentrated. The clearest single stretch came on the back nine at Royal Óbidos in round three, where Williams played the closing seven holes, the 12th through the 18th, without a net par. Every one of the seven was a double bogey: a 6 at the par-four 12th, a 5 at the short 13th, 6s at the 14th, 16th and 17th, a 5 at the par-three 15th and a 7 at the par-five 18th. Seven holes, seven doubles, no deviation whatsoever. There is a certain dignity in a man who finds his level and then refuses, on principle, to leave it. The run yielded six points where par figures would have produced fourteen, a shortfall of eight.

Royal Óbidos has not been a happy course for him. This was his fourth visit, and his best gross there on this trip, 99, was two strokes worse than his previous trip and two off his course best of 97.

The final round at Praia D'El Rey opened badly too, Williams running up a 9 at the first, a quintuple bogey that returned nothing. As opening statements go, it required no elaboration. The one bright note was elsewhere on the same course: his 93 in round one was seven strokes better than his last visit, and matched his best gross at Praia D'El Rey.

Jon Baker won the TEG 17 Green Jacket at +67 gross, 13 clear of David Mullin. It is the third-best gross total of Baker's career.

The margin conceals how long the outcome stayed open. Baker took the lead at the second hole of Round 1 at Praia D'El Rey and held it for 35 holes across two rounds, only to hand it over at the very first hole of Round 3 at Royal Óbidos, where he took seven on the par-four opening hole for a triple bogey and no Stableford points. Thirty-five holes of authority, surrendered before anyone had settled. Mullin was the beneficiary, and he had earned the position: his 82 gross at West Cliffs in Round 2 is a new course record there, beating the previous mark of 88 set across six prior visits, and it was a 12-stroke improvement on his own score at the course a TEG earlier.

Baker did not stay behind for long. He recovered the lead and then extended it, and the last two rounds became a procession rather than a contest. His scoring at the two links-influenced venues supported it: 86 at West Cliffs, 15 strokes better than his previous visit and a course personal best, and 86 at Royal Óbidos, also a course best, three better than his previous mark there. Mullin held the Jacket outright for two single holes, the 1st and the 6th of Round 3, and finished 13 back. Two tenures, both best measured in yards.

The second round of TEG 17 took the field to West Cliffs, the Cynthia Dye links at Óbidos, on Sunday 6 October, only the second time the course had been used. It produced both ends of the register in a single afternoon.

David Mullin shot 82 gross, a new West Cliffs course record. The previous mark was 88. It was also comfortably his own best at the course: he had gone round in 94 on his only previous visit, in TEG 15, so this was twelve strokes better.

John Patterson went the other way, and went thoroughly. His 116 gross set a new course worst, one shot beyond the previous high of 115, and at +44 it was the worst gross round of his career. He had shot 97 here in TEG 15, making this visit nineteen strokes heavier.

The damage was concentrated. Between the 8th and the 15th Patterson dropped 27 shots in eight holes: a double bogey at the 8th, then triple bogeys at the 9th, 10th and 11th, a double at the short 12th, a ten at the par-five 13th, a triple at the 14th and an eleven at the par-five 15th. Six of those eight holes returned no Stableford points at all. The card, at that point, was less a record of golf than a witness statement.

Same course, same day, 34 shots between them.