Beyond the greens: Remembering Alex Prieto

‘OUR ULTRA-TALENTED SPEARHEAD’ Fellow golfers said Prieto was “happiest when he was on the golf course,” as shown in these photos taken on Oct. 11, when he made his last golf appearance at the Inquirer’s Hole-In-One Alert Club Tournament. Accompanied by his wife, Philippine Daily Inquirer and Inquirer.net director Marixi Rufino-Prieto, the golfer and businessman hit the ceremonial tee in that event. —Inquirer Golf file photos

MANILA, Philippines — To say that Alex Prieto lived a full life is an understatement. He wasn’t just no-work and all-play, but a philanthropist who will be missed by many whose lives he touched in ways that only he could.

When you talk of Philippine golf, very few names are mentioned reverently in the same breath as the former national team spearhead who passed peacefully on Friday night, felled by cardiac arrest and confined in the intensive care unit for several days. He was 13 days short of turning 88.

“He was happiest when he was on the golf course,” professional golfer Michael Bibat told the Inquirer over the phone on Saturday, the pain of losing a friend evident in his cracking voice.

“We had a very different relationship because he was a down-to-earth man who never made me feel that I was way below him in social standing.”

“That’s how he made a lot of people feel,” added Bibat, who, now chortling, recounted that day when Prieto visited his newly built home and took home one of his elephant ears plants. “He was never a boss to me like other rich people I know. He was a father, an uncle and a friend to me and my family.”

A rookie for a roommate

Prieto, as another great amateur golfer Tommy Manotoc puts it, sometimes to tease the man himself, “never worked a day in his life and was a damn good golfer.”

Manotoc vividly recalls the time when he was first named to the Philippine team in the late 1970s for a Putra Cup competition in Bangkok. Then a wide-eyed rookie, he was made to share a room with Prieto, “our ultra-talented spearhead.”

Seeing action internationally for the first time, Manotoc made it a point to hit the sack as early as 8:30 p.m.—“only to see no Alex Prieto in the room.”

He would wake up in the wee hours of the morning because “Alex had come into the room, all smiles and asking me why I was in bed so early. I look at the clock and it’s almost 4 o’clock (in the morning) and we tee-off at around 7:30.”

That narrative was necessary just for Manotoc to be able to emphasize what Prieto was to the national teams he served.

“At the end of the day, he was still the team’s highest scorer,” Manotoc said. “That’s how talented he was.”

The pinnacle of Prieto’s amateur career was playing in the Eisenhower Cup—the World Amateur Championship that is still regarded as the most prestigious amateur event in the globe—before winning four Manila Golf Club championships spanning three decades from the ’70s.

His innate talent for the game was evident even in his latter years, with his last club title coming in 1999 at the age of 62. And Manila Golf, which he also served as a member of its powerful board, counted some of the best amateur players in the land back then.

There was no doubt that Alex—husband of Philippine Daily Inquirer and Inquirer.net director Marixi Rufino-Prieto—was of a class very few people can claim they belong to.

But when news of his passing broke, it wasn’t hard for the Inquirer to find people from different walks of life who spoke fondly of the man.

“I’ve known Sir Alex since I was a tee boy (at Villamor),” said Gary Sales, a former driving range worker who later turned pro and now runs a successful business.

“Even when my hands were dirty (from work as a tee boy), he would share meals with us and talk to us in the vernacular even though it was obviously hard for him,” said Sales, who now owns a string of pro shops that counted Prieto among its loyal clients. “He was just like one of us.”

He showed up, anyway

Prieto was known in almost all golf courses in the country. If he wasn’t playing, he made it a point to watch tournaments—whether pro or amateur—just to personally see some of his friends in action.

“There was one PGT (Philippine Golf Tour) tournament at Luisita when he gave me a call to wish me luck and tell me that he wasn’t going to make it because (the venue) was in Tarlac,” Bibat said. “He even told me ‘galingan mo; sorry, hindi ako makakanood kasi malayo (give it your best shot; sorry, it’s too far and I couldn’t be there).”

But to Bibat’s surprise, the man showed up, anyway, waiting at the green of Hole No. 6 to see how his tee shot would go.

“That’s how much he loved golf. And that’s how much he loved his friends,” Bibat said. “It saddens me that I won’t be seeing him anymore.”

Prieto also made indelible marks as a longtime member of the ultra-exclusive Manila Golf Club. His last great caper at the club was during the Golden Tee tournament a few years before the pandemic, where he won a brand-new Jaguar sedan after scoring a hole in one. It would be his last.

‘Look for people in need’

Alex Prieto may be gone but he will never be forgotten for as long as there is Philippine golf, especially with the likes of Manotoc, Bibat and Sales keeping his memory—his generosity, friendship and fatherly concern—alive.

“He once told me: ‘You’re a professional golfer. It means you’re going to work when you enter a golf course,’” Bibat said. “‘Make sure you dress like one. That’s important.’”

The man often brought Bibat shirts and pants at pro shops just for the upcoming player to dress the part, “until I told him not to bother anymore because I already had sponsors.”

Sales remembers how Prieto encouraged him to keep doing what he loved, but that it didn’t stop there.

“‘Now that you have something, never forget to help others. Always look for people in need and help them,’” he quoted the man as saying.