DAVAO CITY — The Cebu Country Club (CCC) bucked several scary moments on the front nine before gathering steam at endgame to capture its first ever Championship division crown in the 65th Philippine Airlines (PAL) Interclub Golf Tournament yesterday at the Apo Golf and Country Club, here.
CCC led by seven points heading to the final round and saw this advantage razed to only three after just nine holes by the defending champions Del Monte. Fortunately, the Cebuanos, whose talents were developed at home, pulled out all the stops in the later holes to finish with a final round score of 128 and a four-day total of 507.
Del Monte finished with 127 points and ended up in second place with 499. Alabang kept their resurgence in the last two rounds and even bettered their third round score of 130 after posting 135 yesterday. Still, it was a case of too little, too late as they wound up in third place with 493 points.
A trio of 34s boosted CCC’s mission of bagging its first-ever Championship division title, after collecting seven Founders division crowns in nine years. Interestingly, Davao proved to be a fruitful place for CCC where they captured three Founders division titles.
YOUNGSTERS STAR FOR CCC
Submitting 34s were Mark Dy and pair of youngsters in 17-year old Lloyd Jefferson Go and 16-year old Gio Gandionco. Eric Deen struggled to a 26 while Garcia’s 24 did not count.
The awesome trio each had two birdies during the final round, with pressure-packed ones on the back nine that helped calm the storm. Dy had birdies on the 11th and the 18th, Go had another on the 13th while Gandionco tapped in for a one-under on the final hole.
“I got a little worried after they crept to within three points on the front nine. But at the same time, I wasn’t too worried because these kids are fighters. They’re fit and it was just a matter of time. But really, it could have gone either way,” said Garcia.
Dy started disastrously, as he quickly found himself four down on the front nine. However, he hiked his boots up and did the work to beat his flightmate, Noel Langamin by three.
“I just did my best to hold and maintain. I didn’t even mind the score. I just wanted to target and shoot,” said Dy.
Del Monte was led by former national champion, Clyde Mondilla, who got 34. The other scorers for the team were Banny Abano (33), Lawrence Cubillo (31) and Langamin (31).
Alabang played like a house on fire despite of the humid playing conditions on the green with AR Ramos getting 37 points from his one-under par performance. Andres Saldana added 36 markers while Justin Quiban and Basti Lorenzo each scored 31. Unfortunately, their second round 104, eventually did them in.
CEBU TO HOST 66TH INTERCLUB
The win could not have come at a better time for CCC as Cebu will be hosting the 66th PAL Interclub next year, where four different courses will be utilized. Veteran parbuster, Carl Almario, gave plenty of credit to their young golfers which he said, carried the fight for the squad.
“Gen (Nagai) was really the difference-maker. He completely outdid himself. All in all, our jungolfers shone through,” said Almario. The rest of the team was composed of Bayani Garcia, Jovi Neri and Marko Sarmiento.
In the Sportswriters division, Mactan and Club Filipino floundered to the finish with the former grabbing an 85 and the latter logging in a 74 in the final round. Mactan finished with a total of 338 while Club Filipino had 296.
The scorers for Mactan were Jufil Sato (25), Mario Cugtas (23), Dong Dimatatac (19) and Olin Seno (18). Counting for Club Filipino were Evans Tumaliwan (22), Ramon Durano (19), Victor Yuvallos (17) and Ted Almario (16).
Winning the said division was Camp John Hay which had a total of 411 punctuated by their final round score of 111.