Cangolf Day 1 game plan: Keep it close

CEBU—Alta Vista and Club Filipino are scenic layouts carved on mountains, offering up-and-down holes with varying views. Their similarities, though, end there.

While Alta Vista is located at the heart of this progressive city, Club Filipino is in distant Danao where its playing conditions are not that perfect and where the Seniors championship is expected to be decided as the 74th Philippine Airlines (PAL) Interclub golf championship unfolds on Wednesday.

Powerhouses Canlubang, the defending champion, and Luisita have chosen to keep silent on their starting rosters as they get to feel each other out at Alta Vista where the greens are receptive and much slower than Club Filipino’s.

“We just want to keep it close after [the first round],” Canlubang mainstay Tommy Manotoc said when asked of the team’s battleplan to counter Luisita’s depth. “We can’t afford to be behind big going to Club Filipino.”

“It will boil down, I think, to which team and which players can play Club Filipino the best,” Manila Southwoods mainstay Thirdy Escaño told the Inquirer. “The course is so unpredictable that a bad bounce could prove crucial.”

Well-manicured Alta Vista will host the first round of the 72-hole event, before action shifts for the next two days at Club Filipino as Canlubang shoots to retain the title it last won in Bacolod before the global pandemic shuttered all of sports in the world.

“We have a good feeling going to Cebu,” Luisita nonplaying skipper Jeric Hechanova said. “It’s where we won our last championship and our players are ready to adopt to the challenge.”

Seniors action used to be a toss-up between Cangolf and Luisita, but many feel that—because of younger blood infused—Cebu Country Club, Southwoods and even Del Monte have become solid threats to gatecrash the exclusive party.

Cebu CC will be playing in the lower Founders division, but can still win the centerpiece title.

“That’s not the case anymore,” Cangolf anchor Manotoc said in an earlier interview. “Younger players have come in—they are stronger and longer and with the ability to overpower courses now.”

Tournament format calls for teams of eight to field just four players a day, with only the top three PAL Stableford scores counting. A player can only play twice during the week, which would make fielding a critical part.

And that is where Cangolf’s strength is even if the Sugar Barons really did not tinker with their team. INQ