Record attendance seen in Southwoods Invitational

MANILA, Philippines – The Southwoods Invitational braces for a record draw this year with a projected field of 325 teams composed of 650 players set to slug it out for top honors in various divisions of Manila Southwoods’ flagship tournament slated from March 29 to April 1 at the Masters and Legends courses in Carmona, Cavite. 

Junjun Plana and Gab Macalaguim captured the overall gross crown while Richard Santos and Michael Miguel snared the overall net honors in close tiebreak fashion in last year’s edition of the host club’s premier member-guest tournament, which drew 200 teams.

But organizers are looking to lure in 100 more squads for this year’s staging of the 36-hole fun but competitive tournament spread over four days with Batch 1 to see action on March 29 and 31 and the next on March 30 and April 1.

Backers of the event are year-round sponsor Royal Caribbean/Baron Travel, hole-in-one sponsors Ogawa, Alpine Motors Philippines, Harley-Davidson, Toyota Silang, PAGCOR Casino Filipino and Klio International, and The Turf Company, Inc., CWC International Corp. and Newport World Resorts, which make up the Platinum sponsors list.

Due to the increased number of participants and to balance the number of players playing on tournament days, play will be sequential tee times on both courses on Wednesday (March 29) and Friday (March 31) at 6:20 a.m. and a shotgun start on Thursday (March 30) and Saturday (April 1) at 7:30 a.m. at the Legends, and 8 a.m. at the Masters; Aggregate format at the Legends and Best Ball format at the Masters under the Stableford Points scoring system with applied course handicaps.

The club has closed the registration as early as last March 15 as entries kept on coming despite reaching the team quota. Players will receive two practice rounds on weekdays, a golf bag and a tour cap. For more information, contact Manila Southwoods at (046) 419-8190 and (02) 8779-5590.

Other sponsors of the event are (gold) Agrexplore Corp., Leads Agriculture/Malveda Properties Development Corp., Mikro-Tech Capital, Inc./Capital One Energy, Inc., The Manor and The Forest Lodge at Camp John Hay; (silver) Abomar Equipment Sales Corp., Alpha Quality (GFX), Ayala Land Premier, Club Leisure Management Corp., First Global Conglomerate, Camaya Coast, Le Chef, Inc., Mit-Air, Inc. and Prestige Golf Access & Clubshares, Inc.

The bronze backers are Absolute Sales Corp., Boeing Material Handling Corp., Camp John Hay Golf Club, Castillo Laman Tan Pantaleon & San Jose Law Offices, Coca-Cola Beverages Phil., Escala Tagaytay, Federal Management & Maintenance, Inc., Forest Hills Golf and Country Club, Gamboa & Sons, Inc. (GranSportivo), GG&A Clubshares, G&W Clubshares, Golforce, Inc., GolfX, Hydrotech Irrigation and General Services, Mitsukoshi Motors Phils., Inc., MRT Dev’t. Corp., Nozomi Providers, Inc., RFM Corp., PBR Law Offices, PNOEZ Golf Accessories Shop (Southwoods Clubfitter), Smart Probe, Inc., Sojitz Fuso Philippines Corp., Suijin Restaurant, TimeCargo Logistics Corp., Triframe, Inc. and Warbird Securities.