Pueblo de Oro: Great course shapes up

CAGAYAN DE ORO - One remembers a one-on-one with the famed American golf designer/architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr., on his portfolio of world-class courses and the secret behind those famous layouts.

"I let the topography of the place talk to me. I walk the length and breadth of the land and listen to what it has to say, its very character. That's how the ideas of a design begin in me," he said.

The guy must have had a dialogue with the devil for this one course - the Pueblo de Oro here in Cagayan de Oro.

Sure, this is really a stunning place. It flows naturally, as they say, across a former expanse of pastureland some 350 meters above the city, and just below its busy airport.

Consider: Lush vegetation, broad ridges, deep ravines, huge bunkers strategically located on bowling lane-like narrow landing areas and verdant fairways flowing gently into beautifully sculpted greens.

That's the good part, the bad part is this could be some kind of a torture chamber.

Ask some of the Manila media men who are here for the 53rd PAL Interclub golf team championship.

Ask Rey Bancod, the sportswriter from Tempo whom colleagues love to describe as "battle-scarred" in golf wars. In one moment of triumph, he wrote in his column that "you can't lose them all."

But he found out, to his chagrin, that you could lose it all here in Pueblo.

The first time he played the course he had a bogey on the first hole, a nine on the par-3 162-yard second hole guarded by a huge pond, losing two balls; had an 11 on the next hole, a drivable short par 4 with a green built on a terrifying corner of a ridge and a seven on the Pueblo's signature par-3 152-yard fourth hole.

By the time he moved to the uphill fifth hole, Bancod looked as if he had just gone to his dentist for a root canal treatment.

That's only for starters.

But Rey did come back to shoot a decent score the following day, finally unlocking the mystery of Pueblo.

Or some mysteries it conceals to the ordinary duffer.

Take that fourth par-3 hole -- it's not only Pueblo's signature hole, it's Trent Jones personal emblem on the courses he has designed. It's a medium length par 3 over a deep ravine with an ancient balete tree brooding menacingly on the right side of the green.

It reminds one of the par-3 fourth hole of Cangolf's north course and the No. 17 of the South course, both designed by Trent Jones.

But there are some variations on this one in Pueblo. For the green is sharply contoured, sloping downward at the back. If this is not daunting in itself, you would run the risk of putting downhill over marble-top fast line with a jarring sound of a descending PAL Airbus to the nearby airport buzzing a few feet overhead.

There's also that 45-degree dogleg, or dog elbow, No. 13, a par-4 382-yard, forcing a lay back for a teeshot below huge bunkers and needing a solid middle-iron second shot to clear another ravine and another giant balete tree.

Tough challenges, subtle hazards lurking on the trees and the calm waters of its ponds come in abundance in Pueblo de Oro, literally means A Town of Gold.

Indeed, this is one gold of a course deep in Mindanao, only two years old but showing promise of a great layout and trudging its lush fairways and braving its fast greens gives a golfer worth a lost ball a rare experience, a round to remember.