John Hay Corporate Cup marks 25th year

MANILA, Philippines - The Camp John Hay Philippine Corporate Cup, featuring the country’s top golfing firms and organizations, celebrates its silver staging with a stellar field clashing for top honors in various divisions on March 11-14 at the John Hay Golf Club in Baguio City.

Camp John Hay Golf Club and Camp John Hay Seniors brace for tough outing this time after dominating their respective divisions in last year’s staging of the annual event founded by former Philippine Sports Commission chairman Cecil Hechanova in 1989.

Now headed by Southwoods chair Bob Sobrepeña, the event is expected to draw the maximum field of 75 teams, each raring to dish out its best form to contend for the crown in the event sponsored by The Manor at Camp John Hay, Le Chef, Golforce, Inc., Silicon Computer and Telecom (GPS Tracker), RizGolf Sports Marketing and The Residences at Brent with Toyota Baguio as hole-in-one sponsor.

As hosts, the club bets are tipped to re-display their familiarity with the up-and-down par-69 layout with CJHGC out to duplicate its 15-point romp over Team Baguio in the premier Group I division of the tournament held under the Molave scoring system.

Bannered by individual medalist Bong Mandapat, CJHGC pooled a 314 in the four-to-play, three-to-count format tournament to beat Team Baguio (299). The other members of the team are Shean Bedi, Goody Ignacio and Oh Kyung Ja.

Their senior counterparts are also going all-out to retain the crown on a team built around individual Nelson Eslao, Park Jong Won, Fred Puckett and Clyde Cabreros. The CJH Seniors assembled a 319 to post a 30-point victory over Haciendas de Naga.

But a slew of others, including last year’s third placer A-1 Driving School (seniors) and Camp John Hay Suites (Group I), are all primed up for the four-day event, which also features competitions in Groups 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Also going for back-to-back title romps are Rural Bankers (Group 2), Interconnect Systems, Inc. (Group 3), Imarflex Battery Mfg. Corp. (Group 4) and Repsol I (Group 5).

Team classification is based on the average of the three lowest handicap indeces of each team. Practice round is set March 10.