Half a lifetime of PAL Interclub

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Sometimes the past has uncanny way of sneaking on you. Things you missed or absent in the mind would nudge a little space and crowd the fancied ones even in fleeting moments in memory.

Like a virtual phantom pain. Like the glimmer of wonder in a child’s eyes.

On the ride back from Apo course, many time a battlefield in the fabled event called the PAL Interclub, there were reminisces of things past.

All because the Interclub has been celebrating its 70th year the past two weeks here in Davao. And we were part of it almost over half of its lifetime.

“You’re as old as the Interclub,” said Pinky, one of the PAL ladies minding the pack of media guys in the fold.

Over half a lifetime.

That’s 45 years of covering the best in Philippine golf. Give or take two or three years when it was held in Luzon, away from its favored enclaves in the Visayas and Mindanao.

But, yes, it would be safe to say 45 years. From a young sports scribe clutched by fear of flying on his first plane ride Cebu-bound for his first Interclub in 1972 to an old enfeebled deadline-beater struggling to complete the media tourney, it’s side event, which ended Tuesday at Apo. The other venue was Rancho Palos Verdes.

That’s some event. We had a fair share of being on top of it for sometime, until golf “trended” in the 90s, became the No. 1 sport that swept the baby boomers, including those previously confined in the lighted sports “press box.”

They discovered the purity of golf, enduring the Searing sun. 

The prize was a round trip ticket to the US of A. And boy did we have a fight! Wild scrambles.

We nearly thrashed each other as well as the Interclub venues. Friendship nearly lost for “misdeclared” handicaps, overzealous scoring and varying versions of “Rules of Golf.”

It was so cutthroat that when Rey Bancod of Tempo nailed his breakthrough win, he promptly headlined his column the following day “You can’t lose them all.”

But for a non-revenue ticket to US, we were ready to go to war and bury buddies.

My five kids made the trip to USA because of these Interclub wins.

Those were the years. They were gone. Washed away by time.

Sometimes they do comeback with some aching presence within, like phantom pain. And you remember the fun and friendship among peers forged in the event, and yes, the children’s trips and the fleeting moment when you see the glimmer of wonder in their eyes.

And it’s all worth it, thanks PAL Interclub.