Last week, I received an email from the Philippine Airlines. It was an invitation to play in the media tournament of the PAL Interclub golf tournament.
Nostalgia immediately crept into my senses, my brain waves.
The golf tournament for the media is one of the anticipated sidelights to the biggest team golf tournament in the Philippines. I have joined the tournament in each of the time I covered the event except for the last time in Clark as I had just come off a back surgery.
Among the sports coverages I have been through in my journey as a sportswriter, the Philippine Airlines (PAL) Golf Interclub will rank among the most memorable ones.
Old memories of the PAL Interclub flashed back in cinematic quality. Those memories seem to play out in my mind’s eye playing like an old Super 8 home movie and vintage Technicolor.
It is in the PAL Interclub where the country’s sports media formed a fraternity of sorts. It’s in those Interclub coverages that I bonded with the icons in Philippine sportswriting I was looking up to as a young boy enamored with the sports pages. The likes of Al Mendoza who became my kumpadre, Lito Tacujan, the late Ernie Gonzales and Roger Flores, Jun Engracia, and Ding Marcelo. There’s the contemporaries like my kumpadre from Cebu Nimrod Quinones, Jong Arcano, Rey Bancod, Musong Castillo, Doods Catacutan and the late Teddyvic Melendres and Peter Alegre.
Of course, there’s the eminent rulesman Jake Ayson and the boys of PAL like Jonathan Gesmundo and Charlie “Davao” Erojo.
Between ourselves are hundreds of lost dimpled balls, acres of divots, cases of San Miguel Beer and bottles of Johnny Walker, boxes of Spam cooked in cubes the way Roger Flores wants it, and pages and pages of chronicles of this amazing tournament.
If I have the chance, I would not hesitate to fly on board the country’s flag carrier and play two weeks from now and create new memories this time in 10-bit 4K.
As soon as I received the invitation, I looked at the email and imagined myself planting a wooden tee on the ground between two white cornerstones. Delicately placed a trusty Srixxon dimpled ball. Stepped back and looked ahead, took three steps as the barker on the mic blurts: “Next on the tee, Neil Bravo.”
I flicked the email straight to a waiting email address.
“Kumpadre Chito (Malabanan), it’s your turn.”
Chito, our resident sports columnist, is heading to the PAL Interclub for the first time as a media participant.
Make great memories, Chito.
