ICTSI Riviera: Former champions head field

SILANG, Cavite—With the big guns opting to play overseas, the chance of the lesser lights to shine couldn’t be greater starting tomorrow when the P2.5 million ICTSI Riviera Classic gets off the ground at the demanding Langer layout here.

Mark Fernando and Jonel Ababa, two former winners at Langer, hope to rekindle their old forms and snap long personal droughts for the P450,000 champion’s purse.

The two former PH Team mainstays, who are products of the defunct National Caddies Open program, won at the wind-swept layout with Fernando pulling off his feat as an amateur in 2009.

Ababa ruled this event in 2011, one of three titles he won en route to being voted Player of the Year.

Asian Tour veterans Angelo Que, Antonio Lascuña, Mars Pucay, Elmer Salvador and Jay Bayron have opted to play in the more lucrative Venetian Macau Open also this week, making it a wide-open race in Cavite.

Cassius Casas, after a second place finish to Elmer Saban last week in Tagaytay, is raring to prove that he still has what it takes to win in the Tour.

Saban, meanwhile, plays as a champion for the first time in his seven-year pro career and admits that the pressure is greater now.

Gerald Rosales knows what it takes to win at Riviera, winning the Philippine Open in 2000 before injuries took him on a downward spin.

Today’s traditional pro-am will feature the pros with representatives of the event’s chief backers.