S’woods writes history, virtually seals PAL win

DAVAO—With a third round performance for the ages, Manila Southwoods pounded the Rancho Palos Verdes layout here Friday and wrote a little bit of Philippine Airlines Interclub history.

Southwoods’ third round team had all five men cracking par—something previously unheard of—to pool a bewildering 156 points that opened up a 38-point lead over Canlubang and made Saturday’s final round a veritable formality at tree-lined Apo Golf.

“Yes, I have never seen anything like this happen before,” non-playing skipper Thirdy Escaño said after getting a flawless six-under-par 66 worth 42 points from Japanese Yuto Katsuragawa and a combined five-under from the others for a 427 aggregate.

“It was one of those days when everything from everyone clicked, I guess,” he continued as Southwoods could just go through the motions in the final 18 holes and join a very classy field of teams that have won three straight years what is considered as the Philippines’ unofficial team golf championship.

New recruits Liam Cully and Carl Corpus were good for 38 points. Astonishing as it sounds, Southwoods had to discard either 37s of Aidric Chan and Jama Reyes.

Jolo Magcalayo shot 41 points to pace Canlubang, but the Barons fell farther from the pace with only Luis Castro providing ample support after coming up with a 35.