Espiritu, Manotoc rule Mango Tee double

Former banker OV Espiritu and Tommy Manotoc did the unthinkable in the recent Mango Tee — the member-guest invitational of the Alabang Country Club presented by Smart Communications — when they romped off with the two major awards.

Espiritu and Manotoc clinched both the overall title (low net) and the low gross awards, marking the first time that a pair went home with the two big trophies in the 20-year history of the Mango Tee.

No one in the field of 256 teams played as solidly and consistently as the two long-time partners, resulting in blowout wins for them in both departments.

They posted 78s Stableford points for both days with their 156 aggregate pushing them six ahead of the father-and-son duo of Roy and Raymund Sangil in overall play. Their even-par 72-72-144 gross was too hot for the field as the nearest team (John Papa and JP Reyes) was too far behind at 125

Mitsubishi Motors Philippines, Pilipinas Shell, Taylormade adidas, Citimotors and Allied Domecq/Carlos I were the major sponsors of the Mango Tee. Sharp, Standard Chartered Bank, The Turf Co. and Food Link were area sponsors and FedEx, Nestle, Pepsi and Security Bank/Diners Club were premium sponsors.

Hole sponsors were Acro Industrial, Ayala Greenfield Estate, Beacon Environmental Mgt., Club 515, City Service Corp., East West Bank, General Milling Corp., GG&A, Golfers Club Shares, Inc., Haji Andi Tabusalla, Joseph Rice Center, MIS Maritime, Palms Point, PNCC Skyway, Prudential Life, Safe Seas Shipping, San Miguel, T&C Construction, Tanduay, The Bellevue, True Value, Unilab/Enervon and YKK Zipper Phils. Par Options Corp., Gainer’s Marketing, Maisog Engineering Works and Anthony’s wine were minor sponsors.

The Sangils, scoring 70-80, settled for the Class D plum, beating Ricky Canlas and Jeremy Parulan in the countback.

Arnel Paras and Rick Kautz came up with a big fight but lost steam. They won Class A, however, with their 79-70-149, two better than the score of Monto Briones and JP Castrillo.

Ildefonso Chan drove home the biggest prize of the event — a Mitsubishi Lancer raffled off to the 512 players in the field.