Joven-Cada, Garcia-Abdon share honors in Mango Tee

MANILA, Philippines - Gilbert Joven and his guest partner Julius Cada captured the low net plum while JB Garcia and JikJik Abdon took the low gross crown both in come-from-behind style in the 30th Mango Tee member-guest tournament of the Alabang Country Club presented by Petron, Smart Infinity and Pancake House/Yellow Cab over the weekend.

Joven and Cada started out in the middle of the pack with a combined 75 on their first day but streaked to the top of the standings with a closing 78 for a 153 and a three-point victory as they crowned themselves the pearl anniversary champions of the event.

Abdon delivered the goods for his team with a three-under-par gross 69 equivalent to 39 points and with the 30 of Garcia, they ended up tying the pair of Paul Salvador-Raymund Sangil at 136 before winning a countback.

Wan Soo-kim and Yong Tae-kim topped Class A, Jun Belicena and Dickie Dizon prevailed in Class B, Vitto Lazatin and Kulas Toribio triumphed in Class C while the Class D title went to Aurelio Litonjua and Beng Javier.

This year’s Mango Tee featured 800 players who got a chance at winning prizes totaling P10 million topped by a Mercedes-Benz C-Class, a Toyota FT-86, a Mitsubishi Pajero, and a Chevrolet Spin that served as the main hole-in-one prizes.

Pepsi, Turf Co., Pacific Links, Royal Caribbean, Food Details, Chivas Regal, Business Mirror, Solaire, Wendy’s, Mizuno, PacSports and TW Steel were the major sponsors.

TW Steel awarded premium watches to Joven and Cada as overall champions of the event which had CATS Motors, Citimotors, Chevrolet/Volvo, Toyota, Texas Eagle, Club Car, Yamaha, Canon and APE as hole-in-one sponsors.

Hole sponsors were 357 Boracay, Machine Technology Asia, Inc., Chinatrust, Omnisource, Manulife, Sarabia Optical/Rudy Project, Golfers Clubshares, Maritime Industries, 345th Residences, City Service, Eurotel, Air21, Gergia, Suarez&Sons, GG&A Clubshares, Bayer, Eurotel, Entom, Citibank, Canon, EC Pay, Peerless, Prudential Brokerage, G&W Clubshares, GNC, Greenfocus/Waterboy, Maybank and Signmedia.

Wan and Yong tied Salvador and Sangil at 150 with a tournament-best 82 in their second round then prevailed in the countback, Belicena-Dizon had a 145 that was one better than the total of Rustico Recto-Abe Avena, Lazatin and Toribio amassed 146 to beat Ricardo Crisostomo-Reynaldo Velasco by two and Litonjua-Javier finished three ahead of Jun Galindez-Enrico Solon with their 143.