Defending champions Gerard Cantada and partner JR Tanpinco head the cast featuring the country’s top pros and a crack bunch of amateurs vying for the top P200,000 purse in this P1.5 million event sponsored by Konica Minolta.
The portly pair of Cantada and Tanpinco will be hardpressed to defend the crown it won over the Ruel Banares-Marvin Dumandan tandem via sudden death last year with a host of teams out to crowd the favorites, including 2002 winners Raul and Paul Miñoza.
But if ever there is one team raring to lift the championship trophy on Saturday, it is the father-son tandem of Juanito and Juvic Pagunsan.
"Siguro naman, pwede na naming makuha ito ngayon," said the elder Pagunsan, oozing with confidence that his partnership with the country’s top amateur will finally produce a championship after two runner-up finishes in 2001 and 2002.
Juvic, who is expected to spearhead the country’s campaign in this year’s SEA Games, also slated here, is actually the player to watch here with the reed-thin but long-hitting Cangolf bet out to re-display the form that netted him the runner-up finish in last year’s Philippine Open where he humbled the cream of the local pro crop.
But the format of the event would need a solid game from Juanito as the competing field will clash it out in 54 holes of stroke play for a single aggregate score with the top 30 teams plus ties advancing to the final day where play shifts to alternate shot.
That should all the more put premium on cohesion with the wind-raked par-71 layout expected to bring out the best – or the worst — from each team what with its hazards, tight fairways and the dangers lurking on its sleek putting surface.
The pros actually got a feel of the course yesterday in the traditional pro-am where Vivencio Lascuna and Jun Galindez combined for a net 69 then banked on a backnine net of 35 to nip Roger Cabajar and Riviera chairman Cesar Jayme Jr. for the crown. Lascuna won P30,000.
Cabajar and Jayme settled for second with a backnine net score of 36-69 with the pro receiving P15,000.
Former President Fidel V. Ramos led the hitting of the ceremonial drive kicking off the event whose beginnings dated back to the fifties then known as the Fort Bonifacio pro-am.
Other guests included Danny Isla of Toyota Motors, Phils., Riviera president Danny Pizarro, U-Bix Corp. owner Bert Bravo, Shoei Yamana, executive director of Konica Minolta and Jayme. — Dante Navarro