Gold-hunting PH golf team armed with more experience for SEA Games
Philippine national team golfer Lois Kaye Go. –CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
There are a lot of Philippine teams that will be out for redemption when the 32nd Southeast Asian Games go full blast in Cambodia next month, with the Gilas men’s basketball squad at the front and center of it all.
Golf, meanwhile, is quietly doing its work like other sports that don’t necessarily enjoy the same enormous following in this cage-enamored nation.
“It’s gold, that’s for sure,” national coach Miko Alejandro said Tuesday morning when the Inquirer asked him of the men’s and women’s teams’ realistic targets in Phnom Phen.
“We will fly there thinking that we can win the gold medal.”
Alejandro has the materials to do it, with Rianne Malixi leading the women’s squad and a young group making up the men’s team.
After winning the individual and team golds in women’s play at Luisita in Tarlac in 2019 with a team built around Bianca Pagdanganan, Team PH went home with a team bronze after the Vietnam edition last year.
And that makes Lois Kaye Go determined to win another medal next month, and she doesn’t want one that’s of the same color.
Philippine national team golfer Lois Kaye Go. –CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
“We are definitely targeting the gold medal,” Go said as she and Alejandro worked on her swing at Manila Southwoods’ vast facilities. “That’s my personal target also before I turn pro before the end of the year.
“And I know that we can do it.”
Malixi is still in Japan playing a string of high-caliber amateur events and will be returning to the country this week to join Go and Mafy Singson. They fly out to Cambodia on May 4 to sample the course for two rounds before plunging into battle.
That trio also represented the Philippines in Vietnam, and Alejandro believes that coming up short there has only motivated his squad.
“They definitely know what to expect now, what playing in the SEA Games is like,” Alejandro said. “I have high hopes for them and they have worked so very hard.”
Malixi is one of the top amateurs in the region, even winning several events on the professional Philippine Ladies Golf Tour.
That failure in Vietnam has also toughened her up, Alejandro believes.
“She’s getting better and better. We have been monitoring her progress wherever she is playing.”
Go said that this tournament will be big for her, especially now that she is training her sights on turning pro.
“I’ve been working very hard. A gold medal will be big for me moving forward,” Go said as she worked with Alejandro for hours on the range seeking a higher ball flight with more control.
“I want to narrow my misses,” she said, with both hands spread apart.
And with Thailand again installed as the favorite with Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore also there, the entire women’s team would need to truly narrow its misses in Phnom Phen to have a chance.
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