Southwoods opens 8-point lead

BAGUIO – CAP-Southwoods put in motion its bid for a three-peat feat in the Championship Flight of the Fil-Am men’s international amateur golf tournament yesterday, firing 134 points on a strong start by Jerome Delariarte and a stronger finish by Angelo Que as the Carmona-based squad seized an eight-point lead over chief rival Mizuno-DHL, scoring 126, at the Baguio Country Club here.

But a controversy at the Camp John Hay involving the very teams of Southwoods and Mizuno clashing for top honors in the Am division might spoil staging of the event after Mizuno owner Benny Gopez threatened to pull out both his teams after his top pointmaker was disqualified for signing a scorecard in an error he blamed on the Southwoods skipper.

"I thought this (golf) is a gentleman’s game. The Rules of Golf no longer come into play here," said a fuming Gopez, referring to the incident where Southwoods’ Thirdy Escano made the wrong entry (4 instead of 5) on the card of Jojo Fernando on the par 5 17th. Fernando, who scored 36 points, was eventually disqualified.

But Escano insisted it was an honest mistake and profusely apologized to Gopez.

Still, Gopez said he will meet with the members of the team later in the night to decide whether to pull out from the tournament or not.

Gopez said he decided to put up two teams (in the Fil and Am Divisions) here to ensure the high level of competition after what happened to last year’s edition where Calatagan vowed not to return after losing the crown to CAP-Southwoods in a controversial fashion.

It can be recalled that Calatagan, after leading by so many points heading into the final round last year, was not informed of its scoring penalties in the earlier rounds and was only deducted the precious points on the last day, prompting team leader Tommy Manotoc to vow not to return.

Truly, the controversy took the luster off the Southwoods bets’ brilliance at BCC.

Delariarte whacked his trusted 8-iron to within 10 feet off the cup at the par 3 10th at the break of dawn and made the birdie, touching off the Southwoods bets’ charge at the testy par -61 course which Que capped with a 38 point-output under the PAL Stableford scoring system and two-under par in stroke play. Delariarte finished with 34 points.

In between flights of the featured event, Erwin Vinluan, who won the recent Ubix pro-am event in partnership with Noli Kempis at The Riviera, carded 32 points while former national titlist Artemio Murakami tossed in 30 in an expected first round romp by the most fancied team in the fold.

So solid was CAP-Southwoods’ start that Jun Jun Plana’s 29-point, which could’ve easily counted in the five-to-play, four-to-count format, was stricken off the list.

"We’re right on target. We’re happy to be in the lead," said team manager Jeric Hechanova, who had so much confidence in his team that he only dropped by the BCC at the halfway mark and left after finding out his wards had led by five points.

"The boys played pretty solid. But they have to maintain the momentum and keep the same level of the game they played today," said team skipper Thirdy Escano.

Like CAP-Southwoods, Mizuno-DHL played true to form and assumed the expected challenger’s role, pooling a 126 on Gene Bondoc’s 36 points, Emilio Tuazon’s 31, Jay Bayron’s 30 and Mario Labajo’s 29. Marvin Dumandan scored 28 points and didn’t count.

Forest Hills stood farther back at 110, which Bobby Ysip highlighted with an ace on No. 16, while Fairways and Bluewater shot 105 and stood in fourth in the event backed by Smart, Sony-Ericsson, College Assurance Plan, Eva Air and John Hay Poro Point Development Corp.

Southwoods had 140 to show the way in the Am Division with Lyndon Barril shooting a 38, Juami Rocha and Montino Garcia both firing 36 and Hanson So chipping 30 points. Escano didn’t count with 29.

Mizuno stood 15 points behind with Fernando’s 36 points, but eventually dropped back by 24 points after the disqualification. Ingemar Kiellberg instead topscored for the team with 31, Alfonso Marcelo and Roy Decendario both had 29 while Manuel Edward Grandez had 27.