Thursday, November 01, 2007 Chiongbian: Two golf events hit Cebu simultaneously By Edgar R. Chiongbian Teetime
HAPPY All Saints’ Day to everyone!!
This is almost always a four-day holiday for our dear departed ones, and is also the start of our six-month religious and family celebration. After All Saints’ and All Souls’ day, it’s Christmas, then the Sinulog, followed by Valentine’s and finally Easter. So make a good start and go to the cemetery, pray and spend some time with the family and friends.
Don’t forget that next week is the 7th Island Tee of Mactan Island Golf Club (Nov. 8 to 11). It is a very popular 18-hole tournament with four days to choose from. Format is a two-man team play, modified Stableford, using full handicaps with five divisions; Class A, B, C1, C2 and Senior (61 above).
Also set up for next Saturday and Sunday is the famous Japanese-Filipino Tomadache golf tournament at Cebu Country Club on Nov. 11 and 12.
Tomadache is a Japanese term for fellowship among friends. This is the eighth year of friendly golf competition between the Japanese golfing community and members of Cebu Country Club.
The format is 18 holes, team play of four players with three to count. It is compulsory to have one Japanese member in the team. And in accordance with Japanese friendly tradition, the winner of a tiebreaker will be the higher age total of the three oldest players in the team.
This conflicting schedule between two very well participated tournaments isn’t all that bad news because it’s only one day to play for either tournament and you can choose the day to accommodate both. The only problem is the Sunday awards dinner, where you must make a guess on which one will give you a major raffle prize. Of course, if you win both tournaments, Mr. Sandbagger, you will be put to a test as to which partner your loyalty belongs.
Congratulations to last Saturday’s October monthly medal winners at CCC. Carl Almario is back after a serious injury and took the lowest gross honor of 73, over countback from Montito Garcia and Eric Deen.
Marko Sarmiento won the Class A champion with gross 74, net 67. Gabriel Yap Jr. was the runnerup with a 76, net 68. Class B champion Mario King had a great day of scoring with an 82, net 66 and pushing Jimmy Sy’s net 67 to runnerup position. Max Tan, not satisfied with winning only the Class C championship, also registered the lowest score of the tournament with a net 64. Jack Huang is runnerup with net 66.
The Class D title went to Rudy Tiu, net 68 and Takaharo Imai is runnerup with net 69. Senior’s champion is Edgar Chiongbian, net 66 and Sammy Darza as runnerup with a net 68. Guest winners Enrico Solon and Teddy Almario both had a gross 75 but Solon’s net 73 gave him the championship over Almario’s net 74.
Congratulations and more dollars to our Pinoy golf pros Frankie Miñoza and Juvic Pagunsan for winning last week in Japan and Indonesia, respectively. Hope these guys will be in the Singapore Open this week and get the chance to play side-by-side with Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and defending champion Adam Scott. Wish them good luck and hope they are still in the groove to make good in Singapore.
GOLF TIP. If you are having trouble with putting, maybe you should try the Jack Nicklaus method. At address, focus directly over the target line with the back of the left hand facing the hole. Swing the putterhead back with the right hand doing all the work and the left hand serving only as a guide.
The hands should work in the same way on the forward stroke, the right doing most of the hitting and the left keeping the clubhead on line. It is very important that the left hand continues to guide through impact because if it stops too soon, the putt will be misdirected.
The main idea of the stroke is to have fluidity between the hands and the putterhead. Try to sustain a constant pace and tempo, using the length of the backswing to match the force of the stroke and length of the putt.
