David Mullin won the TEG 8 Green Jacket, finishing at +77 to beat Jon Baker by six strokes. His sixth. The route there was not straightforward.

Mullin took the lead in the gross competition at the 13th hole of the opening round at Quinta da Marinha and held it for 36 holes, through Penha Longa and into the third round. It ended back at the same course's 13th two rounds later, where a par was enough to see him overtaken. Being overtaken while making a par is a particular kind of insult, and there is no answer to it. The damage had been done a hole earlier: a quadruple-bogey eight at the 12th, the course's second-hardest hole, contributing to a round of 26 points, the worst round of Mullin's career to that point and ten points down on the 36 he had posted at Penha Longa the day before. He left Quinta da Marinha with a best gross there of the 91 he shot in round one. Baker led the Jacket overnight, with Gregg Williams top of the TEG 8 Trophy standings.

Round four at Oitavos Dunes brought more of the same in patches. Mullin ran up another eight at the 11th, then bogeyed the 14th and 15th before a birdie at the par-five 16th halted the slide. His 88 was his best gross of the tournament on the links. By the close he had the Jacket lead back, while Williams still headed the Trophy.

Alex Baker opened TEG 8 at Quinta da Marinha with five straight bogeys across holes 1-5, three points on each and 15 in all, a man laying out his stall with real composure. He turned with a front nine ten points better than the back. That is the last soothing sentence in this section.

The round came in at 30 points and 41 over par, with the damage compressed into the closing stretch: a double bogey at the 15th, a triple at the short 16th, a nine at the 17th and an eight at the last. Fourteen shots dropped in four holes, and not a single net par from the 16th onwards.

The pattern recurred, as patterns will. At Penha Longa he ran up a nine at the par-five 18th. Back at Quinta da Marinha in round three, he played the 7th to the 10th in 13 over: a double, a ten at the 8th, which is the stroke index one hole and had at least given fair warning, another double, then a triple at the par-five 10th. An eight at the 12th followed. From the 3rd to the 16th he made nothing better than a bogey, fourteen consecutive holes of it, until a birdie at the 17th arrived like a telegram from a former life. That round's 111 was his better of two visits to the course.

At Oitavos Dunes he finished with a seven at the par-three 15th and a nine at the 18th. His 104 there was the lowest gross score he posted all tournament, on a links he was seeing for the first time. He also finished runner-up in the Trophy. Both of those things are true.

Stuart Neumann took the TEG 8 Wooden Spoon with 100 points, and the shape of it was decided on the opening day.

At Quinta da Marinha in round one he signed for 17 points and a gross of +43, the worst round of his TEG career on both counts. The damage was concentrated in a nine-hole stretch from the 7th to the 15th, where he bled 29 shots to par and failed to make a single net par. Back-to-back nines at the par-five 10th and 11th, a nine at the 12th, an eight at the par-three 14th. Nine holes is a long time to go without a point worth having.

Penha Longa offered a partial reprieve, his best gross to that point at 99, though the 16th still cost him a nine. The return to Quinta da Marinha in round three was worse in patches. He opened with a ten at the 1st and dropped 17 shots across the first five holes, then ran up an eight at the par-three 9th and an eleven at the 10th, a sextuple bogey. That round produced 20 points.

The closing day at Oitavos Dunes at least gave him something to take home. Neumann posted 32 points, a 12-point improvement on round three and comfortably his strongest golf of the trip, with a gross 95 on a links course he had never seen before. He finished 11 adrift of Henry Meller. It was, in the end, a rally conducted entirely inside the basement.

Henry Meller's four days on the Lisbon Coast turned on holes he could not stop bleeding. It began in the opening round at Quinta da Marinha, where he ran up a 10 at the par-five 3rd, a quintuple bogey and the worst score against par he has recorded on any hole anywhere. That single hole moved him to the bottom of the TEG 8 Wooden Spoon standings, fifth to sixth. The pattern repeated at Penha Longa in round two, where he took nine at the 16th, the stroke index one hole.

Round three offered a reprieve: 34 points at Quinta da Marinha, off a gross 95, his best round of the tournament. It made what followed at Oitavos Dunes harder to explain. Meller played the first six holes in 22 shots over par: double bogey, quadruple, triple, then a 10 at the par-four 4th and a nine at the 5th, before a second double at the 6th. Six holes, no net par, two Stableford points, and a crater in the card that the closing twelve were never going to fill.

He signed for 21 points, a fall of 13 from the previous day, and a gross 111 on his first visit to the links. The blowups that had been rationed carefully across the first three rounds elected to arrive all at once, together, on the final day.

The second visit to Quinta da Marinha, on the Friday, quietly repossessed most of what the field had built at Penha Longa. Four of the six players ran up an 8 or worse: Stuart Neumann took 11 at the par-five 10th, Alex Baker 10 at the par-four 8th, Gregg Williams 10 at the par-five 11th, and David Mullin 8 at the 12th.

Neumann's damage came in bulk, which is his preferred format: 17 shots dropped over the first five holes, including a 10 at the 1st, then 13 more across the 9th, 10th and 11th. Alex Baker bled 13 shots from the 7th to the 10th and added a quadruple bogey at the 12th. Williams gave back 14 shots between the 8th and the 11th.

The scoring told the story plainly. Mullin signed for 26 points, the worst round of his career, ten fewer than the 36 he posted in round two. Williams fell from 41 points to 29. Mullin also lost the TEG 8 Green Jacket lead at the 13th, having held it for 36 holes since the 13th of round one; Jon Baker took it over, his 89 the lowest gross return of the day's field on the course.

After three rounds Williams led the TEG 8 Trophy on Stableford, level with the player behind him, while Jon Baker held the Jacket.