Angelo Que. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
With both scrambling well enough, Angelo Que and Antonio Lascuña on Tuesday returned three-under-par 69s to share a one-shot lead over five players that included the revered Frankie Miñoza as a lot of big guns packed the leaderboard after the first round of the P2 million ICTSI Pradera Championship of the Philippine Golf Tour.
And while the biggest stars in the field are in the mix early, a couple of unheralded amateurs also joined the mix, with Elee Bisera and Josh Jorge shooting 70s to be in Miñoza’s pursuing group together with the veterans Mars Pucay and Gerald Rosales.
The expected howling winds never came at the well-manicured layout up north in Lubao, Pampanga, and Que made the most out of it with his length, while Lascuña gave himself numerous opportunities to go low and hit four of his five birdies in a 10-hole stretch from No. 9.
“I had a good day, putted well, hit a few bad shots, but was able to recover pretty good,” said Que, who is priming up for the controversial Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Tour Asian Tour legs in Morocco and Egypt.
Lascuña continues to find the Pradera Verde layout too long for his liking. But the four-time Order of Merit champion had total command of his long irons in assembling a 36-33