RP sweep augurs well for Putra Cup campaign

PERAK, Malaysia – The dominating performance of the Philippines in the recently concluded 108th Malaysian Amateur Open golf championship has validated the country’s better-than-average chances of regaining its once-lofty standing in Southeast Asia.

“We beat the best in the (SEA) region here,” Tommy Manotoc, a stalwart of many Philippine Putra Cup champion teams in the past, said in a telephone interview a day after Mhark Fernando won the individual championship that sealed a twin kill for the Philippines.

“For the past several years, this is the best chance that we have to win again,” added Manotoc, who recently took over as the chairman of the National Team and Golf Development Committees of the National Golf Association of the Philippines.

The Putra Cup, regarded as the official Southeast Asian team golf championship, in celebration of its 50th year, will be holding this year’s edition in the venue where it started, in Kuala Lumpur, in the third week of October.

No country came close to touching the Philippines in the event in the past, with Manotoc being a part of so many squads that the late great Luis “Golem” Silverio used to spearhead from the 1970s to the 1980s.

Fernando’s victory certainly gave the 28-year-old an inside track on one of the four slots in that team that is expected to be finalized by the end of August.

The Philippines last won the Putra Cup in 1996 in Myanmar with a team made up of Antonio Lascuña, Rey Pagunsan, Richard Sinfuego and Gerard Cantada.

Since then, the Philippines has rarely contended and for several years even languished in the lower half of the field.

Along with Fernando, also available for the Philippines are United States-based talents like Judson Eustaquio, Jik-Jik Abdon, Marcel Puyat and Carl Santos Ocampo.

Those belonging in the local pool are Jonel Ababa, Jessie Balasabas, Peter Villaber, Dante Becierra, Jobim Carlos and prodigy Miguel Tabuena.