David Mullin led the TEG 5 Trophy on net-versus-par from the 18th hole of the opening round, and held it for 21 holes across three rounds. He set a course best at Boavista along the way: his 82 in Round 2 beat the 83 he had shot there in Round 1, which had already broken the 85 that stood as his best through seven previous visits. He was leading the Trophy, walking towards the Green Jacket and holding a course record. There was nowhere left to go but down, and he went with commitment.

The lead went at the third hole of Round 3, a par five he played in seven for a double bogey, a net bogey. Enough, as Gregg Williams moved ahead. Round 3 then became Mullin's worst round to date, +12 net and +27 gross, including a nine at the 13th, a par five, for a quadruple bogey.

At Palmares, a course none of the field had played before, he took another nine at the par-five 6th. That one hole dropped him from fourth to last in the TEG 5 Wooden Spoon race, and he stayed there, unbothered and unassisted. He finished the Trophy fifth, having been first after Round 1, and collected the Spoon at +12 net.

The oddity is that the same four rounds produced his best scoring, too. Back-to-back birdies at the 12th and 13th in Round 4 tied the all-time TEG record for consecutive birdies, and his six birdies or better across TEG 5 is an all-time TEG record for a single tournament. The Spoon and the record belong to the same four rounds, and largely to the same afternoon at Palmares.

Henry Meller's rounds at Boavista gave little warning of how it would end. His second round produced three of the tournament's biggest holes: a 10 at the par-five 16th, the worst score against par he has recorded anywhere; an 8 at the par-four 18th; and a 7 at the par-three 14th. The round finished 30 over gross, with a twelve-shot split between his two nines, one of which was plainly having a different day from the other.

Round three was steadier without ever threatening much. Pars at the 3rd, 4th and 5th, then a double bogey at the short 6th. His 91 was the best of his three visits to Boavista in this tournament, four strokes better than his last round there, though still short of the 89 he shot on the course in TEG 3.

Palmares, played for the first time in round four, changed the picture. The damage arrived early and got itself over with: seven shots dropped across holes 9 to 11, a triple bogey at the 9th followed by doubles at the 10th and 11th. Everything else held. Meller signed for 89, three under his handicap allowance and a personal best both on net and on gross, where +17 bettered anything he had managed in four TEGs. A man with two Wooden Spoons, bottom of the race after Rounds 2 and 3, had chosen the final available day to play the best golf of his life.

It was enough to close the gap in the TEG 5 Green Jacket from a peak of 30 shots to 18 by the finish.

On the Monday at Boavista, Stuart Neumann played the best round in TEG history. His -9 net was a record, and his +11 gross was a record too: an 82 on a course he had already visited eight times, where his previous best was 89. Fifteen strokes better than his 97 there in Round 1, and a course personal best by a distance. For one afternoon he was, incontestably, the finest golfer the tournament had ever produced.

The Tuesday at the same course took it all back. He opened proceedings with a 7 at the par-three 2nd, a quadruple bogey, which turned out to be merely the overture. The round was lost over the closing stretch: a double bogey 7 at the 16th, a triple bogey 7 at the 17th and a quintuple bogey 9 at the 18th. Ten gross shots in three holes, with no net par among them.

Wednesday's move to Palmares, the first TEG visit to the course, offered a clean slate, and he declined it. Triple bogey, triple bogey, double bogey through the 2nd, 3rd and 4th: eight shots gone in three holes. He at least finished tidily, playing the 16th, 17th and 18th in level par gross, worth three net shots to par, for a round of 96 on a course nobody in the field had seen before. The man who set the record and the man who signed for the 96 were, technically, the same man.

David Mullin won the TEG 5 Green Jacket at +72 gross, 12 clear of Jon Baker, and the contest was effectively decided over the first two days at Boavista.

He opened with a gross round of +12, the lowest gross round recorded in TEG to that point. That 83 swept aside the 85 that had stood across 35 prior visits to the Howard Swan parkland at Lagos. The 85 had been Mullin's own mark, set at TEG 3 on one of his seven previous visits. He then bettered it the following day with +11, a gross 82 that lowered his own new Boavista course record. Stuart Neumann shot 82 that same afternoon to share it. Mullin therefore spent the afternoon dismantling himself, nine strokes better than his last visit before this TEG. The same round was a personal best against the Trophy's net-versus-par measure at −4.

The third day was the opposite extreme: +12 net of par, +27 gross, the worst round of Mullin's career to date. It made no difference whatsoever. Henry Meller, who at one stage trailed by 30, pulled 12 shots back over the closing stretch and still finished 18 adrift. Baker's recovery was smaller in scale: 19 behind at his lowest point, closed to 12 by the end of the final round at Palmares, the first visit to the Robert Trent Jones Jr. course. Neither got close enough to make the last day matter.

Jon Baker's TEG 5 ended with the finest golf of his career and no trophy to show for it. What came before was littered with wreckage: a quintuple-bogey 8 at Boavista's par-three 6th in round one, then two nines in round three, at the par-four 7th and again at the par-four 18th to close the day. Between them came a passage of genuine competence, holes 9 to 12, worth four shots to par on net.

The final round at Palmares, a course none of the field had played before, produced more of both. Jon opened with five net shots gained across the first four holes, including a birdie at the short 3rd, then put an 8 on the par-three 5th, which is a substantial quantity of golf for a hole of that size. What followed was the moment of the tournament for him: birdies at the 14th and 15th, back to back, tying the all-time TEG record for consecutive birdies.

The round added up to a gross 90, +18, the best gross round Jon Baker has recorded. It hauled him from 19 behind in the TEG 5 Green Jacket race to 12 at the finish. It did not overhaul the TEG 5 Trophy leader. His Boavista scoring had already been eight strokes better than his last visit there; the arithmetic still declined to help.