2006 Philippine Golf Open

Today, Ray & LeAnn attended the 3rd round of the 90th Philippine Open golf tournament. It was held at Wack Wack Golf and Country Club on the east side of Metro Manila. The course itself is very picturesque with the water, trees and then the skyline full of tall buildings in the background.

The name Wack Wack comes from Tagalog words for the sounds the native crows make that inhabit the area. They had a couple of crows in a large caged area between the 16th and 17th holes. They were not very loud. We did see some other large birds going across some of the fairways that looked somewhat like very large quails but with the heads of small turkeys.

The course at Wack Wack is made up of the large bladed and course carabao grass. It is cut very short in the fairways, but does not grow real deep in the rough. However, it is difficult to hit out of because the grass catches your club head and slows it down significantly. The sand was somewhat course, but the pros we saw had no problems getting out of it. There is a lot of water going through the course and a lot of approach shots over water to the greens. Most of the greens are elevated and have lots of undulations. The par 3, 17th hole (aptly named Camelback) has a small hump backed green that rose at least 10 feet from the level ground and sand traps surrounding it.

There were no tickets sold or admission charged to watch the tournament. The crowds were very sparse (I would guess only a few hundred all told), so we could watch anyone we wanted from anywhere. We walked the course backwards so that the players would all come through us in time and we could see most of the course also. We didn’t make it all the way around, but saw everyone who was playing.

The Asian Tour is going to take over the tournament for the next 5 years to bring it up in stature and try to elevate the prize money. They want a tour stop here because of how long golf has been played in the Philippines. This is by far the oldest tournament in Asia. We are hoping it can hang on. It would be wonderful to see it played at Sta. Elena with their Bermuda fairways, but tradition has it that Wack Wack will host more often than not. It has been awarded the tournament for the next 2 years.
The father of one of Mariah’s schoolmates plays on the Asian Tour, so he was playing today. He is originally from Canada, but has lived here in Manila the last 16 years. He was tied for fourth going into the 3rd round, but was 3 over for the day and was tied for 11th going into the final round. He was 3 over again on Sunday and ended up tied for 18th for the tournament.

Sorry for the quality of these photos. We had brought our regular camera only to get on the course and turn it on to find we had left the memory card back in the PC at the house, so these are taken with a camera phone.