4 courses tapped for Cebu PAL Interclub
By Musong R. CastilloPhilippine Daily Inquirer
Two sets of two courses—each varying greatly in character—will be used when the Philippine Airlines Interclub Golf tournament returns to Cebu starting with the Seniors division championship on Feb. 21.
Alta Vista and Club Filipino, gems carved out of mountains, will be the venues of the Senior event, which the Canlubang Sugar Barons will try to win for the second straight year.
Both layouts offer an entirely different challenge with its bending, up-and-down fairways, with Alta Vista considered as the tougher of the two being the older course.
Mactan and Cebu Country Club, traditional championship courses, will host the Regular Men’s event where Cebu CC is the defending champion.
The Club Filipino layout is a much younger course and could be conquered by the longer hitters of the tournament because trees that should act as defenses to booming cut shots are not that mature yet. Still, the Club Filipino can punish errant shots with several out-of-bounds markers.
And because both courses are way above sea level, playing the winds could very well spell the difference, especially at Alta Vista, which has numerous holes that require approaches and tee shots over huge ravines.
This year, the Interclub is being sponsored by 105.1 Crossover, Solar Sports, Plantation Bay Resort and Spa, 92.3 FM Radyo 5, Araneta Coliseum and AXN, while the major sponsors are Airbus, Manila Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine Broadcasting Network, People Asia, Radio Mindanao Network, Business Mirror and ABS-CBN The Filipino Channel (TFC).
Corporate sponsors include Radisson Blu Hotel, Shangri-La Resort & Spa, Boeing, Inquirer Golf Magazine, Philippines Graphic and Manila Bulletin.
Canlubang rallied from a 12-point deficit in the final day to nip Luisita at Apo Golf in Davao. The Luisitans will come into this year’s tournament with a new look with Iggy Clavecilla, their former mainstay, now to act as the non-playing skipper after suffering a massive stroke while in a tournament in Korea last year.
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