Baguio City—Surigao has two teams that are in a very good position to take top-flight honors even as Manila Southwoods’ teams start the second half of their title-retention bids in the Championship flights as the 69th Fil-Am Invitational Golf Tournament holds its penultimate round today.
Team Surigao I went to the Camp John Hay golf course and produced 114 points for a three-day aggregate of 323 and still carries a 17-point lead on Che Lus I, which came out with the same output.
Amazingly, both teams have identical outputs for those who counted – a pair of 29s and 28s.
Surigao had 29 from Don Petil and Ramon Capistrano and 28s from former Tourism secretary Ace Barbers and Lito Camo.
On the other hand, the Guamanians got 29s from John Quinata, Jesse Quenga, while Warren Pelletier and Mike Castro chipped in 28 each.
Mizuno – Power Systems is still at third spot with 296 after a 110.
In Fil D, Surigao II came in with 94 points for 247 to catch up with Macquarie Links Sydney which made 88 for 244 at second spot, only one off three-day leader Waterlympics.
Waterlympics had a third day output of 85 for 248.
Meanwhile, Southwoods goes to the third round carrying a 31- and 36-point leads in the Fil and Am flights, respectively, leaving the rest to fight for the second and third spots.
“That is a really big lead and knowing that their players can really play well,” said Jude Eustaquio as his Fil Championship squad of Forest Hills is lodged at third spot, four off second-running Royal Northwoods.
The Forest Hills golf manager and team captain hopes to get big points from his “big gun,” the pint-sized Rupert Zaragosa, who could shoot well at the longer Camp John Hay course after two days at the challenging and shorter Baguio Country Club.
With the Japanese duo around – Yuto Katsuragawa and Aguri Iwasaki -- and cousins Aidric Chan and Carl Corpus – it is expected that Southwoods will be coasting for the title, its sixth straight again. This will match the six straight the Carmona, Cavite-based parbusters had when they debuted in 1997 until 2002.
Southwoods’ captain Thirdy Escano is confident his wards will play well in the next two days.
“I am 100 percent that we will score at least 145 points,” he said. “We are just harvesting what we planted when we started the program some 20 years ago.”