PGT holds Q-School for foreign aspirants

MANILA, Philippines - To accommodate the big number of foreign players seeking spots for this year’s richer, bigger ICTSI Philippine Golf Tour, the organizing Pilipinas Golf Tournaments, Inc. will hold a separate Qualifying School for them on Jan. 14-17 at Eagle Ridge’s Aoki Course in Gen. Trias, Cavite.

Manila-based Canadian Rick Gibson heads the early roster of foreigners in the hunt for berths on the upcoming local tour, now one of Asia’s leading circuits with its key legs tapped as part of the Asian Tour and Asian Development Tour calendars.

Toru Nakajima’s playoff victory over Cassius Casas worth P450,000 ($10,200) at the season-ending ICTSI Wack Wack Championship last November also helped lure a big number of foreign players into the circuit, all hoping to duplicate the Japanese feat.

Nakajima placed joint second to Dutch Guido Van der Valk in last year’s combined Q-School for local and foreign aspirants.

But the PGTI saw the need to hold two sets of qualifiers to give all hopefuls a chance with Joey Huerva topping the local Q-School held last month.

Fifteen Koreans, led by Park Kyoung Chun and Kwak Tae Heon, have so far signed up along with 10 Americans, including Elliott Hume, Krishna Beach, Tony Guerrero and Norman de la Peña, while Japan has three and Australia, Canada, Bangladesh and Sweden have one each thus far.

Deadline for listup is on Jan. 10 with fee pegged at P10,000. For details, contact PGT (Jocelyn Duque) at 0915-7824751 or download application at www.pgt.ph.

The top 20 players after the 72-hole tournament will gain cards for the upcoming 2014 season, which will feature a record 18 legs, including four P3.5 million events.