Thursday, August 21, 2008 Chiongbian: WGAP moves to Bacolod By Edgar R. Chiongbian Teetime
WHERE have all the ladies gone?
Gone to Bacolod everyone. I am actually referring to lady golfers that used to swarm the golf course of Cebu Country Club around this time of the year. Gone with them are the trendy and colorful uniforms of the lovely ladies on the fairways.
The women’s national golf tournament of WGAP has changed their venue for one reason or another. This should be an interesting tournament for them after playing 23 years at CCC and now they have to muster another golf course. Bacolod Country Club is not difficult, after all they have no water hazards to speak of, but the yardage from the ladies tee is longer and not as friendly as CCC. So that can be the equalizer.
Their change of venue can be beneficial to our ladies of Cebu because they are getting the opportunity to travel and play outside of Cebu. We understand that this year, they have about 160 participants, which approximates to 20 teams from various clubs in the Philippines.
Maybe you have not noticed it but it is getting very difficult to hold tournaments in Cebu. In fact, very few—or none at all— national tournaments are being held here anymore. Cebu used to be the prime choice by any organizers to hold golf tournaments. The PAL Interclub hasn’t been to Cebu for over eight years, the annual Rotary golf tournament was last played in Alta Vista five years ago. The PAL Inter-sports was held here last year and is maybe the last of its kind.
There are many reasons why this is happening and one is that it’s very expensive to hold tournaments in Cebu. Second, many clubs which are private except for Mactan Island GC, are very reluctant to give in to the required time and space for national tournaments. The reasoning being that these tournaments displace the membership from their natural rights to the golf course and clubhouse.
On the contrary, what’s happening is the surge of tourists playing golf in our private clubs, which obviously increases revenue many times over. And more private parties at the ballroom and function rooms. What does this really mean?
It means that we are here to do business and to earn money and we are not worried about public relations or goodwill. But if business is going so well, why aren’t we building more golf courses?
The three clubs in Cebu are currently in the process of improving their golf courses. Alta Vista is on their second phase of rebuilding more greens in their quest for super duper high-tech putting greens. CCC, under the direction of Montito Garcia and the watchful eye of Clifford Celdran, is reshaping the look of the fairways and will implement new layouts for holes 5 and 6, and later the adjoining holes.
Mactan Island GC is always at work with their golf course under GM Joya, who is always on the lookout for their state of affairs. I still believe that the key to the bright future of MIGC is to re-layout the first three or four holes of the front nine.
These are currently halfway holes and are potentially dangerous to the players.
If MIGC ever decides to move or redirect their driving range, the golf course will have the necessary land to reshape the first three holes into beautiful holes.
What we really need is another public golf course that the city of Cebu or Mandaue can build because they have the land and the revenue to make it work. Even an executive golf course of 10 Par 4’s and eight par 3’s to make a total of par 64 should be enough. They can sell playing rights membership at P100,000 each and generate P4 million from a golfing populace of 400 golfers.
With the potential revenue and livelihood that it generates, it will surely be a nice city government project and nice green park that we never had.
The Olympics is almost over and all we got was a peek at it. Many people are not even aware that the Olympics are going on and local TV covers this note only during the news. If you paid for pay-per-view, you’re still getting only a tenth of what is going on.
Our friend Joe Soberano is mad why golf is not included in the Olympics when it’s one of the top sports and with Tiger Woods having the highest income of any athlete. I agree and also ask why don’t they have billiards in the Olympics? On the other hand, they introduced BMX motorcycle racing to the Olympics when the sport was only born in 1968. But the world champion in the BMX is a Filipino, so maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
