For first time in years, Seniors crown a toss-up

The Interclub Philippine Airlines (PAL) golf team championship will resume in the Queen City of the South next week with the Seniors tournament which, unlike in recent years, is no longer a two-way race.

“It’s wide open this year,” Tommy Manotoc, the old grand of amateur golf and defending champion Canlubang stalwart, told the Inquirer by phone on Friday. “Other teams welcome younger, longer [hitting] players, as we get older.

The Sugar Barons will be looking for another 55-and-over crown after battles at Cebu Country Club and Club Filipino, and Manotoc believes that Cangolf is the decided underdog this year behind fierce rivals Luisita, Cebu Country Club and emerging forces. Manila Southwoods.

“He had a key addition, we stayed intact,” Manotoc said. “We are the weakest team among the four on paper, the only thing we have going for us is our experience.”

Manotoc and Rolly Viray, a 73-year-old couple, and Abe Rosal will be the cornerstones of the Sugar Barons, while Luisita will have the usual big guns and will welcome the new Interclub in the 55-year-old Marty Ilagan.

Southwoods, meanwhile, showed its stake in the Fil-Am in Baguio by winning the centerpiece championship in December with a team built around Jun Jun Plana, Theody Pascual and Joseph Tambunting.

“We’re going to have a fight,” Pascual told the Inquirer before practice over the weekend. “We hope to duplicate our performance in Baguio.”

The Men’s Regular Championship will begin next week with Southwoods taking on the seventh championship at Cebu Country Club and Club Filipino.

Considered the country’s unofficial team golf championship, the Interclub will be played for the first time since the pandemic in 2020, with more than 1,500 players seeing action.

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