WHILE the buzz was on Cebu Country Club (CCC) playing captain Marco Sarmiento after the club’s historic triumph in the PAL Interclub, I noticed his kids watching the beaming dad as he was being interviewed.
“You mean Cebu Country Club? You mentioned Canlubang,” Marko corrected the interviewer.
Behind the interviewer was Marco’s wife, also recording the interview. At her foot were the kids. They seemed bored, from my point of view, but what got my attention was their Paref-Springdale jerseys and football spikes.
Marco, or Marko/Marco in the PAL interclub website, has played in the last 18 Interclubs while I’ve covered it for 13 years. But it was only in the last four years or so that we got to talk regularly in the Interclubs. Prior to that, he was just a name behind a score.
But in that four years, we talked more about football than golf. The only time I interview Marco about golf is during the Interclub, which happens once a year. I see him in the sidelines more, camera at hand--sometimes with that golf umbrella sans an umbrella girl--during the football festivals and tournaments, which occur four or five times a year.
Why am I sharing this? It’s simple really. I haven’t had the experience of watching a dad watch his kids excel and months later get watched himself by his kids as his team makes history.
“Wala gyud mo’y salig namo ha, wala mo’y photog diri,” Marco told me after I called him after Day 1 of the PAL Interclub.
That may sound arrogant, but not really. When I took over the PAL Interclub coverage, there were some bumps but to smooth things out, it became practical to just interview the captain, the best scorer and use the photo of the best scorer. There’s no guessing game on who gets featured in the paper and the CCC guys know that.
Sure, I can do Inquirer and say how burly Bayani Garcia fared in his round but that’s not me. But we did have a fotog tailing them in their last three days.
“Bai, just got the e-mail from PAL. You made history today,” I texted him after Day 2, when CCC took the overall lead.
“Why man?” he asked.
I read the PAL press release again and the writer was interviewing somebody who was somewhere 31 years ago. And in this business, if someone does that, you know something special is happening.
“We have to win first, for history to be repeated,” Marco said.
And win it they did. In emphatic fashion. The 32 points of Harvey Sytiongsa didn’t event count! You can’t really highlight the significance of that to a non-PAL golf follower, and think as I much, there’s no comparison: A 20-pointer in basketball that doesn’t count? A first penalty in a shootout that doesn’t count? Or having a team that is so good that a LeBron James is only good enough for the bnech.
That’s how good they were in the final round. What easily would have been the best score for some clubs wasn’t even counted for CCC because it was their lowest score.
And that pretty much sums up CCC’s campaign this year. Just a series of unbelievable finishes.