Southwoods cements date with PAL history

DAVAO—Manila Southwoods downplayed its dominance of the 70th PAL Interclub field on Saturday as not even the Carmona-based squad’s worst performance for the week could prevent them from completing the club’s first-ever hat trick with the biggest win on record.

With the seasoned Jun Jun Plana anchoring the young, final round team, Southwoods closed out with 120 points but still won its third straight title with a 44-point rout of Canlubang to extend its reign and get the chance to establish a dynasty very few teams before them did.

Plana fired a three-over-par 75 worth 33 points at challenging Apo Golf, Tom Kim contributed 30, former Junior World champ Kristoffer Arevalo had 29 and Jets Sajulga 28 as Southwoods tallied 547.

Canlubang closed out with just 114 points and was a far second with 503, even as Del Monte wrested third place from Luisita with the day’s best performance, a 123-point effort built around the 36 of former Philippine Team member Jelbert Gamolo.

There’s no doubt that this team provided the perfect sidebar to its date with history as Southwoods also became the first team to have all five players cracking par in one round, doing it last Friday with a 155-point effort at Rancho Palos Verdes.

And while everyone continues to rave at this performance, nonplaying skipper Thirdy Escano vows to keep working to make Southwoods dominant next year.

“We have so much respect for Canlubang and we know that they will not allow this thing to happen again,” said Escano, who received a congratulatory handshake from Cangolf owner Luigi Yulo.

Yulo got 32 points from Rupert Zaragosa and Gido Mandanas and 25s from Marco Olives and Carlo Villaroman for a fourth round 114.

Del Monte drew 32 from Mel Cubillo.