Casas top ICTSI Negros Classic pick

CASSIUS Casas shoots for a second straight title starting tomorrow when the ICTSI Negros Occidental Classic gets off the ground at the short but tricky Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club course (formerly Marapara) in Bacolod.

Three days after thumping a bigger field in Iloilo, Casas sets out as the prohibitive pick in the 72-hole event offering a handsome P200,000 to the champion.

And winning two straight is something that the 47-year-old champion has not done since his best form in the late 1990s.

“It’s been a long time since I won two-in-a-row,” Casas said in Filipino as he braces himself up for a different challenge at Marapara, a winding, tight par-70 layout that is by no means a pushover.

This will be the first stop of the tour at Marapara since Zannie Boy Gialon nipped Antonio Lascuña in sudden death of the rain-shortened edition in 2012.

Lascuña will be in the field, as well as Elmer Salvador, the second placer to Casas in Iloilo.

But some of the Tour’s big guns  are absent anew with Angelo Que, Jay and Rufino Bayron, Mars Pucay and Miguel Tabuena competing in the Taifong Open in Chinese Taipei, the richest stop in the ADT with its total purse of $160,000 that begins Thursday.

The traditional pro-am ushers in the tournament today with the leading pros paired with guests from sponsors Nike Golf, Pacsports, Srixon, FootJoy, It’s More Fun in the Philippines, Callaway, Mizuno, Custom Clubmakers, Titleist, Sharp and KZG.