EXPECT a battle royale as the men of the tour seek solid finishes in the 98th Philippine Open presented by ICTSI which fires off tomorrow at the Luisita Golf and Country Club in Tarlac.
The players will be jostling for spots in the Top 63 in the Order of Merit to earn a full Asian Tour card for 2016.
Among the players fighting to break into the cut-off line are Thai Chinnarat Phadungsil, young Phachara Khongwatmai, also of Thailand, Scott Barr of Australia, Japanese Akinori Tani, Sam Cyr of the US and Korean Giwhan Kim.
Three Filipinos are inside the safety zone but Miguel Tabuena (44th), Angelo Que (52nd) and Tony Lascuña (56th) will also be going all-out not only to improve their respective ranking but regain the championship for the Filipinos.
Que last won the Open, as an Asian Tour event, in 2008 at Wack Wack with Elmer Salvador and Artemio Murakami ruling the next two editions in all-Filipino Open.
American Berry Henson nipped Jay Bayron to snare the 2011 crown, Singapore’s Mardan Mamat dominated the field the next year and Marcus Both winning by two last year. There was no Phl Open in 2013.
A total of two Asian Tour OOM winners, including local ace and Japan-based Juvic Pagunsan, and no fewer than 15 Tour winners will slug it out for top honors in the season-ending $300,000 event, Asia’s oldest national Open which used to be the kickoff leg of the Asian Tour.
Six players in the Top 20 of the current Asian Tour OOM are also among the 132-man elite field while Jeunghun Wang of Korea, who will represent Team Asia in next year’s EurAsia Cup, is also in the fold.
“I think this is our best chance to reclaim the crown,” said Lascuña, out to cap the season with a win after yielding the local OOM title he held for three years to Tabuena.
“But we have to take advantage of our local knowledge of the layout with premium on putting since the local can match the foreign aces’ power,” added Lascuña, one of the pros seeing action in today’s pro-am tournament along with the amateurs and guest players from the event’s chief backers, including ICTSI, MVP Sports Foundation, Smart, PLDT, Metro Pacific, Amon Trading, Central Azucarera de Tarlac and Ayala Land Inc.
The other former Asian Tour OOM winner seeing action in the 72-hole championship backed by hole sponsors San Miguel Corp., Suntrust Properties, Sta. Lucia is Thai Thaworn Wiratchant.
The storied Philippine Open has celebrated many worthy champions in the past, including Australia’s Peter Thomson, Lu Lian-huang and Hsieh Min-nan of Chinese Taipei, Mardan Mamat of Singapore and Filipino stars Frankie Miñoza, Angelo Que, Larry Montes, Celestino Tugot, Ben Arda and Luis “Golem” Silverio, who won as an amateur in 1966.
Aside from Pagunsan, Lascuna, Que and Tabuena, other local bets tipped to contend for the crown are Jay Bayron, Elmer Salvador, Cassius Casas, Rufino Bayron and Charles Hong.