RP Open returns to fabled home

If there was anything Ben Abalos wished as soon as he took over the presidency of the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club, it was for the return of the Philippine Open to its so-called permanent home.

The former mayor now chair of the Metro Manila Development Authority will get his wish this week.

Working hand in hand with National Golf Association of the Philippines president Rod Feliciano to lure the corporate sector’s support for the Open, Abalos and the organizing group will unveil a grand P9.5 million show starting with Wednesday’s pro-am at the time-honored Wack Wack east course.

Wack Wack had already hosted more than a third of the last 86 editions of the Open.

And 11 years after local hero Robert Pactolerin raised the champion’s trophy at the greenside of the 18th, the prestigious club now boasts of a new, spanking clubhouse that took hundreds of millions to build.

For this year’s Open, organizers also decided to reverse the front and back nines of the east. The famed killer stretch of the east – the par-4 seventh, the par-3 eighth and the par-4 ninth will become the last three holes.

The change, which is suggested by organizing committee chair Benny Gopez, is expected to result to a more unpredictable finish since fortunes can swing wildly with the severity of the holes.

A field of 130 pros, 81 of them from foreign land, will dispute the winner’s paycheck of P1.5 million in the event which is backed chiefly by Casino Filipino and San Miguel Beer as co-presenters.

The other sponsors are Mitsubishi Motors, Herma Group of Companies, Hope Luxury Cigarette, Hanjin Shipping, Prudentialife Pension Plan, General Milling, Metrobank, Bingo Bonanza, Citra Tollways, Rudy Project, Unilever, Metrobank, Marsman Drysdale, Pyramid Construction, Mizuno, Solahart, Citgo, Wallem Shipping, Executive Golfers Club, The Riviera Golf and Country Club, Philippine Navy, GG&A Club Shares, Electrobus Consolidated, Solahart, Philtec Label, U-Bix, PLDT, Aristocrat Lamps, Pacsports, Café Appassionato, Philippine Army, Philippine Navy Golf Club, Villamor Golf Club, G.E. Management, Marriott Vacation Club, Toyota Motors, Greens Management, Golf Force, First Georgetown Ventures, Nextel and Cinnabon.