Malixi steals show at Midlands

TAGAYTAY, Philippines — Rianne Malixi recoiled as often as she tripped, besting two-leg winner Harmie Constantino with a kind of game honed and sharpened by her stints overseas as she produced a 73 to storm ahead by three over fellow amateur Laurea Duque and Sunshine Baraquiel at the start of the ICTSI Midlands Ladies Classic here yesterday.

While Constantino and the rest of the pros stumbled and fell in hot, windy conditions, Malixi proved so composed and focused, bouncing back strong from each miscue while bucking her struggle with her short irons and putting to put up a 37-36 marred by a bogey on the closing par-5 hole of Midlands.

But that hardly mattered on a day when four leg winners poised themselves for a spirited battle for top honors in separate two-somes in the season-ending event of the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour halted by two suspensions due to surge in coronavirus cases in NCR Plus in March and July.

But Constantino, who swept the Eagle Ridge-Aoki legs last March and last month, and first-time winners Baraquiel (Highlands), Chanelle Avaricio (Riviera-Couples) and Daniella Uy (Riviera-Langer) all wavered in difficult scoring conditions, enabling the 14-year-old Malixi to steal the show in the early going of the 54-hole championship put up by ICTSI.