Thursday, November 23, 2006 Chiongbian: Celebrations aplenty today By Edgar R. Chiongbian Teetime
Many things are happening today. If you follow the American calendar, today is Happy Thanksgiving Day. I’m sure you have something to thank about so this is a good time as any to do some thanksgiving. No need to eat turkey unless it’s there for taking. Just do something special and be extra nice to everyone.
Today is also my mother’s 92nd birthday and that is surely a lot of thanksgiving for our family. We already had a special mahjong birthday party for her yesterday along with her civic-minded Friends of the Poor organization. So today will be a double treat.
And the Rotary “Mother” Club of Cebu is celebrating the 74th anniversary today of its chartering in 1932. This club stands tall among other very established clubs in Cebu; like the Casino Espanol which is about 85 years old, Cebu Country Club on its 78th year and Club Filipino de Cebu on its 76th year. This you might say makes RC Cebu a part of the heritage of Cebu.
There are no turkeys in this group! RC Cebu has a long list of past presidents that are the who’s who in Cebu. One of them is Rex Reyes who is still very active and attends our club meetings every week. He was the club president in 1957 and proceeded to become the district governor of Rotary International district 3860. The club will recognize his big contribution to the club and honor him today.
The current club president is Oscar Jereza Jr., who is a 3rd generation Rotarian in our club with his father being the club president in 1963. John Domingo is waiting under the wings to take over as a second time club president and take the reign on our 75th year. Last Monday we remembered Ronnie Duterte, a past president of RC Cebu on his first death anniversary with a gathering of family and friends at Montibello Garden Hotel.
Along with our Cebu golfing buddies, I am off to the Founders Cup tournament of Orchard GCC in Cavite so I will miss all the activities above. Today is my first day at the tournament and hope I do well in the Palmer course because I think I can handle the Gary Player course much better.
We would like to inform the members of the Los Jefes de Cebu team that there is a dinner meeting/Christmas party on Dec. 7 at 6:30 pm in the Teatro ballroom of Casino Filipino Lahug. This is a very important meeting to attend and we hope that the members will not pass this, especially if they are interested in playing in the next PAL Inter-Sport.
The tournament is still about nine to 10 months away but since the event will be held in Cebu next year, we will have to get organized early. The rotation from Davao, Bacolod, Iloilo and General Santos last year has brought the tournament back to Cebu, where it all started 30 years ago. This tournament of business executives of ten cities is expected to balloon to 13 or maybe 15 teams next year. That will bring the number of participants to about 1000. All six sports, golf, basketball, billiards, bowling, tennis and badminton will be played.
Our basketball team under team captain Chester Cokaliong is going for its three-peat next year, which we are expecting to get. We have the best bowling and tennis teams in the league, when they all show up. All we need is to strengthen our golf team and form a good badminton team to take it all.
Golf Tip: Many players concentrate solely on the putting stroke to be consistent with their putts. They don’t realize that the two key elements for consistency is in the grip pressure and alignment. Players push or pull putts because they change their grip pressure in different parts of the their hands.
Too much finger pressure or by squeezing your fingers tighter on the grip during a putting stroke causes the putter-head to close and make you pull the putt. If you apply too much pressure on the heel of your hands, it will promote an open putter-face and you will push the putt. You should keep hand pressure constant through the stroke.
But a good stroke and constant grip pressure will not help if you are not lined up properly. Practice alignment by placing a club on the ground to align your stance, eyes and target. Your eyes should be parallel to that club and inside the ball because you’re used to playing your shots that way, not directly over the ball.
