Moving on. How about this, two renaissance senior members who got it together capped off their rounds with Nassau corners front-nine net 32 and total net 68 scores. The unflappable “I’m still here guys” Sennix Bontigao and master tactician Exe Navarette both shared that identical net scores to win those two Nassau corners and the day prize as well. This was a second day prize crown for Exe Navarette making him the seventh multiple winner for the year. Sennix Bontigao on the other hand, gave a performance of his life on a challenging golf course capturing his first win of the year.

Other Nassau corner winners: This was the first time ever to happen as five players with a coincidental net of 36 shared the back nine win: Sennix Bontigao, Mar DeVeyra, Exe Navarette, Seho Oh, & Julio Rodriguez. Wasn’t that remarkable how it played out? Whether you like it or not, both Sennix & Exe swept all Nassau corners. 

From L to R: Sennix Bontigao, Mar DeVeyra, Exe Navarette, Seho Oh, Julio Rodriguez

Accuracy shot department: The smooth swinging Dave Nelson got it closest than anybody else on the par 3 eight hole while Jimmy Manguerra couldn’t be satisfied without winning anything going home captured the eleventh hole.

From L to R: Dave Nelson, Jimmy Manguerra

After last Sunday’s nineteenth round, here are the top five favorite candidates to win next Sunday’s Grand Finals:

Sennix Bontigao (68)

Exe Navarette (68)

Dave Nelson (70)

Ray Macapagal (72)

Seho Oh (72).

For complete results please refer to  Round 16 to 20.

Major contest updates: We have a new leader in the POY contest. Dave Nelson climbed up the leaderboard upon reaching fifteen games and now leads last week’s leader Joey Cruz by two meager strokes. Seho Oh now co-leads Joey Cruz in the SPOY contest. In the MIP race, a new leader also showed up. Jun Paculaba entering his fifteenth game of the season to qualify, leads Exe Navarette by 0.0016 points while last week’s leader Joey Cruz fell back to sixth. Now I could see how flaky this game of golf was after only a week Joey lost all the lead except SPOY in which he co-leads. Manny Chea still holds a three-shot advantage heading into the final round of the Month 4 race next week over Steve Kim.

From L to R: Dave Nelson, Joey Cruz, Seho Oh, Jun Paculaba, Manny Chea

Food for thought: One member of ours let his promising daughter more than once to play with us this year. It is a breath of fresh air scene to watch as father and daughter who are both soft spoken demonstrating they can also play golf. Hopefully, SGC can entice more women golfers to our league and the entire GTA Interleague event for a start. It needs a lot of labor of thoughtful interest among members and real commitment to support the idea. SGC sees no gender restriction if an individual has a passion for the game of golf at all. At any rate regarding a co-ed related golf sport, we welcome SGC’s lone female member, Lina Mayo who just came back for her first game after a shoulder injury. Nice to see her playing again then she’s off again for a 14-day vacay. Enjoy.

Congratulations to the winners. Wish you good luck to Month 4, Grand Finals, & Super Series 4 contests next week.

Twenty-nine degrees Celsius at BraeBen golf  course last Sunday which started promisingly good weather wise at tee off time for twenty-seven players. It did not last long enough as we got to the back nine. The clouds became darker and darker and the rain came pouring down. Our round was halted close to two hours by rainstorm accompanied by threat of lightning. Nobody wished the round would be cancelled due to inclement weather, but play resumed soon after. Four players did not bother going back to the course to finish their game, everyone else completed their respective rounds with lingering wet feeling as there was drizzle still coming down. Although it got better when the sun came out again later, it was grudgingly a little late for the latter groups playing.

Raining or not, someone had to excel to play the round regardless. Low and behold, Manny Chea not only showed up but nonchalantly played a marvelous round that propelled him to a spectacular gross score of three under 69. How about them apples? This is the Manny we used to know. Anyway, how did you think his net score would be? Forget about it – no one came close and because of that score, Manny grabbed the day prize. The slightly soaked eighteenth hole surrendered an eagle score to Manny himself discreetly finishing his super round. As far as Month 4 contest is concerned, he leads this one as well over the second placer, Steve Kim by three strokes. More of Manny later this page.

Nassau winners: A pedestrian, quiet performance by Julio Rodriguez was good enough to beat everyone else for the Nassau front nine and total net with net 32 and 66 scores respectively. Jess Velarde who brought with him a delicious ‘sisig putahe’ remarkably seized the back nine with net score of 31.

From L to R: Julio Rodriguez, Jess Velarde

Par 3 closest to the pin contest: More of Manny Chea as promised. He rifled a perfect shot on the seventh par 3 hole to win it. Jojo Dizon bragged about his shot that got the closest on the hundred and fifty yard-thirteenth hole.

From L to R: Manny Chea, Jojo Dizon

Major contest updates: The ever-steady Joey Cruz still leads all three – MIP, POY, & SPOY. With only five players getting in the MIP contest, Joey is ahead by 0.0255 MIP points and ten strokes POY lead over the same man, Julio Rodriguez; Seho Oh trails Joey by mere seven strokes in the senior department SPOY.

From L to R: Joey Cruz, Julio Rodriguez, Seho Oh

ANNOUNCEMENT: For those new members, SGC has the Grand Finals contest coming up in the next two weeks at Royal Ontario and Kingsforest golf courses on August 25, 2019 & September 1, 2019 respectively. Prizes awarded to member(s) with the lowest aggregate of 2 best net scores of these two consecutive rounds (Best 2 of 2 net scores). Top five win a prize. No qualification needed, just show up and play. Please be reminded to try avoiding having guests for these two days as it a Super Series weekend & Monthly 4 contest culminating at Kingsforest. For ruling on Grand Finals cancellation and ruling, check the posting about ‘Local Rules’ on SGC’s site.

Royal Woodbine golf course as the most centralized and convenient location for almost of the twenty-seven players that showed up and played last Sunday, welcomed us with perfect weather conditions at twenty-eight degrees Celsius with the sun shining brightly all day long. For the whole summer, this was the last time SGC ever got to play this golf course but outside our summer tournament, a few players I’ve known play this course on weekdays.

A cohesive and clutch effort from five players, factored into the equation of net scoring in the high 60s – Joey Cruz, Seho Oh, & Exe Navarette all with 67; Steve Kim & Sophera Tuy trailed two strokes behind with 69. Did I get that feeling players were getting better or the courses were getting easier?

From L to R: Joey Cruz, Seho Oh, Exe Navarette, Steve Kim, Sophera Tuy

Surprisingly, day prize was claimed by three players: The unflappable Joey Cruz together with the quiet assassin Seho Oh and the comeback story Exe Navarette all signed their respective scorecards with nets of 67 as mentioned above. Due to this shared day prize, all three of them as participants of the Nassau scoring contest, captured the total net as well. Exe added to his repertoire by winning the back nine and appeared to be the big winner of them all. Joey & Seho because of these wins just joined the day prize multiple winners club with four other players. Beware people. Guess who’s leading three major categories – MIP, SPOY, & POY, if the season ends today it is Joey Cruz. Repeat of the same feat two years ago? Could somebody stop this guy? 

 

 

Alone seizing the Nassau front nine was the promising Sophera Tuy.

Par 3 closest to the pin contest: Seho Oh getting it done on the par 3 fourth hole while one of SGC’s newbie Sangva Sok when it mattered most, put it on the green on the tenth hole that nobody could beat even if his ball landed twenty yards from the pin location. Way to go, Sangva.

From L to R: Seho Oh, Sangva Sok

Congatulations to the winners.

When things settled with gorgeous playing conditions last Sunday at Glen Cedars golf course at twenty-eight degrees Celsius, there were lots of no shows with only twenty-three players showed up. No surprises here if scores were at the lowest since this golf course offered less difficulty compared to others. As a matter of fact, to attest to this summation, competition was fierce as four players closely carded net scores in the high 60s namely: Steve Kim (66), Mar DeVeyra (68), Rey Plaza (68), & Jess Velarde (69). Worth mentioning was the 79 gross scores of SGC’s best, Manny Chea and Jimmy Manguerra.

From L to R: Steve Kim, Mar DeVeyra, Rey Plaza, Jess Velarde, Manny Chea, Jimmy Manguerra

But in the skim of things where it mattered, Steve Kim started to get on a roll and grabbed momentum. You gave this guy a chance, he took the chance, ran away with the day prize with a net score of 66. Steve won the previous week with a net of 68 making him multiple day prize winner together with three others. He won the Nassau back nine and the total net scores which were mirror wins of a week ago. Game is finally rounding into form, isn’t it?

Rey Plaza who was on a tear since we started back in May, won the Nassau front nine credibly. He also leads Joey Cruz by four strokes in the SPOY contest.

In the closest to the pin contest, the quite solid and stoic Manny Chea got the par 3 fifth hole. On the sixteenth hole, this was a bit of perplexing result as two players – Dave Nelson & Jimmy Manguerra shared the prize. I was told that no matter how many times they measured those two shots, it came up identical. Anyway, it was nice of them to get the tie decision.

From L to R: Manny Chea, Dave Nelson, Jimmy Manguerra

MIP (Most Improved Player) department. There is a little irony in this contest as well. Maybe it’s still too early to tell with nine more games unaccounted for. With fifteen games gone, there were only two players qualified with all the required criteria to win this contest. Bingoy Peña leads Joey Cruz by 0.0322 points. Joey with the completion of fifteen games, leads the POY contest. Just to remind you folks, he is contending to whatever contests SGC offers. Isn’t this called consistency? Darn right.

From L to R: Bingoy Peña, Joey Cruz