Professional golf has seen the worst of times. But as Covid-19 cases continued to diminish from all over in the year about to pass, the sport is back into the swing of things and heading to the best of times.
The way Guido Van der Valk’s game is leading to.
And where women’s pro golf is advancing.
Tony Lascuña
With two victories — both fashioned out in come-from-behind mode — the Manila-based Dutch found himself besting the country’s cream of the crop and on top of the ranking list at the end of the season.
Sure, six tournaments won’t gauge one’s efficiency or prolificacy. But then again, at the elite level, golf’s a young man’s game, and given all the tools and technology that help these youngsters get better, hit it further.
Chanelle Avaricio
And at 42, Van der Valk doesn’t expect to measure up with the likes of Miguel Tabuena, Keanu Jahns, Lloyd Go, Ira Alido, Sean Ramos, Fidel Concepcion, and many others off the tee.
But there remain ways to excel in other aspects of the sport. Ask Tony Lascuña, the 52-year-old warrior who can still play against rivals half his age.
Hybrid clubs, which offer more forgiveness on off-center strikes and versatility from the mound, have provided players with an alternative to long irons.
Still, hard work and discipline plus a positive mindset have been the time-tested formula for golfing success.
Guido Van der Valk
Luck also plays a crucial role in a player’s title drive. But the funny thing about good fortune is that it almost always falls on truly talented players.
Needing to drain a putt from what he described as “a long, long way off the hole with a massive break,” Van der Valk buried the putt from the end of the green to force a sudden death with Tabuena at Splendido Taal.
He then rode on that brilliance to beat the two-time Philippine Open champion in sudden death.
“Difficult, but probably my Splendido win,” said Van der Valk when asked to compare his Splendido caper with his victory at Pradera Verde. “It was my first playoff win as a pro so that made it special.”
But humbling a pair of Davaoeno aces in Lascuña and Jhonnel Ababa in the season-ending championship in Lubao, Pampanga should also rank high in his five career victories since he didn’t only hold off a four-time Order of Merit winner in Lascuña but he also put an end to Ababa’s reign at Pradera Verde.
Ababa was a back-to-back champion in PGT Asia in 2018-19.
Coming off a long break that also saw the men of the tour vie in limited tournaments in bubble setup during the pandemic, Van der Valk mustn’t have had any hunch he would emerge on top after the six-leg season, three of which were decided in sudden deaths.
He shared 10th place in the kickoff leg at Luisita won by Tabuena and ended up 13th at Caliraya Springs ruled by Zanieboy Gialon.
But moving to the wind-raked Splendido Taal, Van der Valk’s game went on an upswing, stalking the leaders in all three days before catching Tabuena by surprise with that highly improbable putt from way out.
After pulling off the caper, Van der Valk sustained his form and stayed in the hunt for a back-to-back title run after 54 holes at Eagle Ridge-Aoki. But a closing 74 sent him reeling to another tie for a 10th finish in the fourth leg topped by Michael Bibat.
Van der Valk also took control after nine holes in the final round of the next PGT stop at Riviera but still wound up joint fourth in a leg where Juvic Pagunsan turned what had been a “lost cause” into a resounding playoff triumph over Lascuña.
At Pradera Verde, Van der Valk didn’t only prove that an average hitter could win on a course made for long hitters. He showed he also has the poise to humble a pair of seasoned Davaoeno rivals in a riveting finish.
With two victories, that came after his triumphs at Eagle Ridge in 2018, at Club Filipino de Cebu in 2019, and at The Country Club Invitational in 2020, the Lelystad native handily emerged on top of the money rankings with P918,266 in winnings.
Lascuña won the season-ending ICTSI Villamor Match Play Championship to finish second with P802,850 and Mondilla wound up third with P682,666.
Unlike the PGT, the Ladies PGT staged tournaments nearly twice that of its counterpart with Chanelle Avaricio and amateur ace Rianne Malixi bagging three titles each, Chihiro Ikeda capturing two, amateur Mafy Singson snatching one at Splendido Taal, and 2021 top player Harmie Constantino closing out the busy season in style.
It’s just too bad that Avaricio had to miss a couple of events (Valley and Riviera) to embark on an LPGA Tour card mission, which Malixi, 15, ruled in contrasting fashions.
The Alabama State University product’s absence also paved the way for Ikeda, who topped the Mount Malarayat and Eagle Ridge-Aoki legs, to nail a second OOM crown after reigning supreme in 2016.
While Avaricio proved in control of her game and the LPGT field, Malixi also played beyond her years, overpowering the pros with a huge 13-shot triumph at Valley to go two-for-two in her limited LPGT stint after holding off multi-titled Princesa Superal by one in the season-opening leg at Valley.
She won all her three participations in local pro golf as she pulled off a two-stroke victory over Korean and fellow amateur Kim Seoyun at Riviera then headed straight to Thailand and placed second in the Thai Amateur Open, won the Thai Junior World Championship crown then tied for third in the Women’s Amateur Asia Pacific Championship.
Harmie Constantino
Avaricio did return for the closing leg at Pradera Verde, that sprawling, well-kept course and the only venue to have hosted the circuit twice in a season, where she had hoped to duplicate her six-stroke romp over Ikeda and Sarah Ababa last June.
But Constantino had other things in mind.
Facing the specter of ending up winless in a 10-leg season put up by ICTSI, Constantino, who marked her pro debut last year with two victories, both at Eagle Ridge-Aoki, finally nailed the elusive one, holding her nerves in a pressure-packed backside duel then pouncing on Avaricio’s faltering windup to hack out a one-stroke victory.
Not only did she better a tied-for-second finish at Splendido and third-place efforts at Hallow Ridge, Mt. Malarayat, Valley, and Riviera, but Constantino also capped her season-ending surge with a victory in the rain in the inaugural ICTSI Match Play Championship at the Villamor Golf Club.
She foiled Malixi no less on a course she calls home, spiking her rise to the top of the head-to-head duels with a clutch chip-in birdie she later described as “unexplainable.”
But for many, her victory wasn’t as baffling as it had appeared to be. Sure, she trailed the talented Malixi majority of their spirited final round clash but the diminutive but plucky shotmaker rose to the challenge, never giving her fancied rival a chance to pull away and keeping her composure despite trailing by one hole heading to No. 18.
And as Malixi stumbled with a wet second shot and yielded the hole to extend the match, Constantino toughened herself up back on No. 1.
Then after coming short of the par-4 hole, she came through with that tournament-defining chip shot that bounced, rolled, and disappeared into the cup.
With back-to-back victories in stroke (Pradera Verde) and match play, Constantino could only look forward to a more productive season in 2023 the way Lascuña would after the latter likewise saved what had looked like a frustrating season with an imposing 4 and 3 victory over Jahns in the men’s side of the novel championship.
“I thought I would go winless,” said Lascuña, who tied for second with Reymon Jaraula at Eagle Ridge-Aoki ruled by Michael Bibat, lost to Pagunsan in sudden death after blowing a two-shot lead with one hole left in regulation at Riviera, and tie-ing for second again with Jhonnel Ababa at Pradera Verde.
“But this victory (match play) meant so much to me and my career. I proved that I still could win, so I’m looking forward to a better campaign next year,” Lascuña said.
