Southwoods well on way to another Fil-Am sweep

Manila Southwoods (SW) sustained its assault on the Fil and Am championships on Thursday, with its star-studded premier team padding its lead to 23 points over Forest Hills despite slowing down with a second day 138 at Camp John Hay (CJH) in Baguio City.

South Korean Jeff Jung submitted a one-under-par 68 worth 37 points, Kristoffer Arevalo accounted for 35 while Gab Manotoc and Carl Corpus scored 33 each to complete the scoring for the Carmona-based bets who are heavily favored to repeat here as they take a 286 tally when action shifts to tricky Baguio Country Club (BCC) for the last two rounds.

Forest Hills pooled 134 points to open up an 18-point lead over Januarius in the battle for second.

Southwoods’ Am team is setting the tables up for another sweep after tallying 119 points at BCC, leading a young Royal Northwoods squad by a whopping 33 points with their play in the final two rounds set at CJH.

Josh Jorge and Lanz Uy led Southwoods with 35 and 34 points, respectively, in the Am division as Northwoods drew 29 points from Zach Villaroman and 28 from Patrick Tambalque.

“Everyone on the team is playing well and their spirits are high,” Southwoods official Jerome Delariarte, no stranger to winning titles in Baguio, told the Inquirer. “This is not over even with the leads that we have. We hope to continue building on them.”

Both divisions will take a break on Friday, and Delariarte said that the SW sides have been given the day.

“We want them to rest, basically,” Delariarte said. “But some of them have already asked for the schedule on the range. They know what lies ahead and no one will be taking it easy.”

Southwoods also won the Senior Fil title last week with a team backstopped by the seasoned Jun Jun Plana.