JOHN Kier Abdon and Dottie Ardina stamped their class on the rest of the competition as they took home the championships in their respective divisions in the Philippine Amateur Match Play at the Sherwood Hills Golf Club in Cavite yesterday.
Abdon took care of business early on as he took two of the first six holes and never trailed en route to defeating Andres Saldana, 4-3, for the men’s title.
Ardina also won in similar fashion as she won the first three holes and went on to hack out an identical 4-3 romp over ICTSI teammate Javyie Agojo in the ladies side of the event, which served as the third leg of the Globe Amateur Golf Circuit.
Abdon and Saldana parred the first three holes in the featured match but the former went 1-up after the latter bogeyed the par-5 No. 4.
Abdon birdied No. 10 to go 2-up, then watched Saldana sputter with bogeys on Nos. 13 and 14 before matching his rival’s par on the next to wrap up the match.
Ardina, on the other hand, primed up for her title defense in the Queen Sirikit Cup next week as she overpowered Agojo with a sizzling birdie-par-birdie start to set the tone for the rout.
It was Ardina’s third victory in two months as she also topped the WWWExpress-DHL Open Championship and the Kuala Lumpur, putting herself in good stead as she tries to defend the individual Sirikit crown against the best players in the Asia-Pacific region in Singapore. /Correspondent Jonas Panerio