Green and Blue

CEBU - Praises were poured last week for the Mactan Island Golf Club due to the tremendous improvement that even the club’s members, who have been missing for a couple of weeks or months noticed.

As the cliché goes, there is always room for improvement. At the MIGC, they don’t only say this but live it.

Over lunch of tinolang mixed seafood last Sunday, I had a brief chat with the club’s general manager, Retired General Rodante S. Joya.

He said that one thing that they were also introducing to their tournament was the use of a specific trophy design so people who would see such trophy would know that the holder is a winner of their Island Tee.

This is an idea that I have long been pushing in the events, where I am part of the committee, but haven’t really been put in place. It is just like the Oscar Awards, you know the person won the Oscars because of the trophy that is distinct.

I have a very limited collection of golf trophies in my home and despite that sometimes I have to take a closer look at the plate to remember from which tournament I won it. 

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After having fun at Mactan last week, competition shifts to the Cebu Country Club with the 7th La Salle-Ateneo Golf Classic Cebu that ended yesterday and this Friday’s 8th Charity Fun Golf.

In the past years, the groups that I get assigned to play with were usually dominated by the Blue Eagles, but yesterday, we had it split even among the four of us.

There were Ben Gothong and Nestor Mendoza for Ateneo and me and my granduncle Nolan Rada for La Salle. I had to look for my brightest colored green shirt to wear for the event so that if I can’t shock them with my game, at least the color would disturb the opponents.

Well, I guess I failed in doing any damage, but Ben, despite being from the opposing team, was a good teacher and I started hitting better off the tee after he called my attention to a mistake I was making.

It is just hard to make him believe that my handicap is like my waistline when I was in college, but we gave them one big fight.

Oh well, I still have no idea how things went at the golf club as of this writing, which I had to do while getting my car washed. 

The La Salle-Ateneo event does not really draw hundreds of players, but the tournament is one of the most talked about due to the rivalry that is actually just for fun for the participants.

After trying to poke fun at the opponents in whatever way we can, at the end of the round and of the day, we’re all friends who share the same passion for alma mater and for golf.

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MILESTONE: Belated happy birthday greetings to my good friend Rex Alenton of Petron who turned a year older yesterday.

Happy birthday greetings go to my nephew Nicholas Leon N. Quiñones, who is turning a year older today.

More power! (THE FREEMAN)