Antonio Lascuña waxed hot again and reclaimed the ICTSI Open Championship lead with a three-under-par 69 as overnight frontrunner Zannie Boy Gialon failed to weather a bad start and fell two strokes off the pace at the Wack Wack East course in Mandaluyong.
Lascuña, the first-round leader, gunned down four birdies against a bogey for a 212 total after 54 holes at the tree-lined layout long considered as one of the toughest tests in golf in the country.
Gialon opened bogey-bogey on the way to a 75 and 214 with Cassius Casas and Miguel Tabuena firing a 70 and 73, respectively, to be at level 216.
“I was able to put my tee shots in the right places in the fairways and got good looks on my approaches,” the 44-year-old Lascuña, the local tour’s reigning three-time Order of Merit champion, said in Filipino.
Angelo Que, who won his Philippine Open over this same course in 2008, matched par for the first time this week and lay six shots behind, needing a truly low round in today’s final 18 holes to turn things around.
Anthony Fernando, Charles Hong and Dutchman Guido van der Valk were all bunched at 222s after firing a 72, 74 and 77, in that order.
Lascuña birdied holes Nos. 2 and 3 and sustained his form the entire round, his only bogey coming on No. 9. He played his final nine holes at 1-under to move closer to another victory on the tour.
The East course yielded just two sub-par rounds yesterday, the other one to Casas, who also has a history of success over the layout.
The tournament is being backed by Custom Clubmakers, Titleist, Nike Golf, PacSports, Callaway, Srixon, KZG, Sharp and Foot Joy.