Cebu Country Club hosts dozens of tournaments each year; but nothing compares to the Coral Tee — a member-guest invitational held every Sinulog week (Wednesday to Saturday) that’s now on its 36th year.
Atty. Jovi Neri, one of CCC’s top golfers, said that the 36th Coral Invitational, next to Manila Golf’s Golden Tee, is the second oldest member-guest invitational in the country.
But last week may have been one of the most challenging.
“While we assumed that we would have a wet Coral Tee as early as two months ago, we did not expect it to be this wet,” said CCC board director and golf chairman Julius “Jayjay” Neri, Jr. “We were very nervous on opening day (Wednesday) as it was raining most of the morning. Thursday had the least rain and gave us hope that conditions would improve.”
After the 430 participants completed the first two days, it poured heavily again on Friday and the forecast on Saturday was more rain.
“It was crucial that the tournament would not be stopped due to the weather or the Calcutta bets as well as the ‘Palusotan’ would have to be cancelled because these were based on the 2nd day scores,” said Jayjay. “And half of the field were playing on that rainy Saturday.”
To make things more problematic, there was no mobile signal. “I got to the club at 9:30 a.m. and did not leave until after the awarding ceremony,” said Jayjay. “Twice on Saturday morning, I was on the verge of declaring the course unplayable. But just as I was about to do so, the rain would slow down.”
Jayjay Neri, who is also the general manager of SunStar, considers being able to finish the 36th Coral Tee despite the torrential rain (and having no major accidents apart from a few who slipped due to the muddy conditions) as a major blessing.
Talking of blessing, two others received major surprises. The first was Rolando Casing of Cagayan de Oro. Last Friday on the 3rd hole of CCC, he used a 7 Iron Titleist 762 club and swung. The ball flew high above the Banilad trees, bounced on the green, rolled and disappeared for a hole in one. Witnessing the rare occurence were Richard Hong, Benedict Uy and Hisashi Miyashita. As reward, Mr. Casing took home a Jeep Wrangler.
Another blessing happened to my good friend Alvin Alazas, a former CCC club champion. At the conclusion of the Coral Tee, the most awaited moment is the grand raffle.
“In the past, I always bought the tickets numbered 118 and 318,” said Alvin, in our phone conversation yesterday. “The number 118 is my civil wedding date (Jan. 18) and 318 is our church wedding date (March 18).”
But as fate would have it, these numbers were taken. Alvin had to choose another raffle number and picked “018.”
“The first number called was ‘0,’” he said. “In our table were Jiji Gullas, Manolet Heredia, Hector Almario, Armando Serafin and Peter Mancao. We have one ticket, they said, referring to our consortium (we bought tickets as a group). When the next number ‘1’ was called, the others, said, sorry, we didn’t win.”
It turns out, Alvin bought his own ticket. Finally, when the number “8” was called and Alvin’s name was announced, all his friends jumped.
“It was exactly 25 years ago that I first joined Coral Tee,” said Alvin. “That was in 1992 and I’ll never forget that tournament because the first day was my wedding day!”
Tomorrow, Alvin and Mimi celebrate their silver anniversary. And as gift, a brandnew 3.6-liter V6 Jeep Wrangler.
