San Fernando - A Clipse of Golf History in the Philippines

How President Marcos, Christina Kim, Spike Lee Kuan Yew, Dr. Christian Claude Bernard and a occupant golf game game professional with a colourful past times got together

Poro Point June 2007: You may be an devouring golf player who have travelled around in Southeast Asia and played in most of the known courses of study on the golf map. However, the opportunities are you would not have got discovered this small course of study nestled on the seashore facing the Luzon Sea, just about an hr or so drive West of Baguio City. To name it a non-descript would unfairly douse the enthusiasm of the many mostly local golf players who garner every late afternoon for the game; nonetheless it could have got been passed off as just one of the many courses of study in the Philippines, built during the clip of the American disposal and now awaiting either an upgrade, if luck have it, or a slow decease from disregard and then go completely flooded when a new and modern course of study of study acquires built in the vicinity, except that Sir William Wallace Golf Club, the lone baseball club in the metropolis of San Fernando, State of Lanthanum Union, is unique!

Built in 1975 primarily for the United States Airborne Division stationed here, it is the lone course with sand-green in the full Philippines! Not to raise not due expectations, the Sir William Wallace course of study of study is actually a simple Par 36 2,600-yard course with Hole#1 starting from the thatched-roof baseball baseball club house some 300 paces away from the sea and curved along the seashore before turning at the beacon back towards the club house. The Signature Hole - one takes the autonomy to name it that - is Hole#4 Par 4 307-yard dog-leg right with a 265-yard consecutive hair-clipped by tall trees at the bend before the consecutive again to landing. Not exactly a piece of mastermind in the course of study designing but even if you have got the drive art you might still be well tested to do the greenish in two. Period.

Sipping cool lemon tea on a lazy bright afternoon and looking over the drive scope and the tee-off for Hole#1, it is difficult to conceive of anyone who could be excited over these course of study technicalities. You either play here or you don't. There are no other courses of study in the vicinity. But not so for Sixto Domenden, the 65 year-old grandpa occupant pro, one of the two chief designers involved in the edifice of Wallace. The other designer was his American Air Military Unit colonel for whom, he recalled fondly, he often covered during the latter's secret rendezvous with his girl-friend.

Way back in Baguio City Sixto began his calling in the golf game course of study as a caddy. But he was no ordinary 1 unless you see caddying for the infamously great President Marcos as an ordinary occupation on the course. When they first met, Marcos was only a Congressman. By the clip he became President of the Philippines, Sixto was already firmly his personal caddy. As he noted, Marcos did not change a spot after becoming the President and that impressed him a lot. It was the great President who made certain that his aureate words of 'always look back to where you came from before embarking additional in your life' were firmly imprinted in the head of the then immature Sixto. For that Sixto remained grateful. Perhaps the saga of the Marcos' bequest could have got go a small clearer and more than than easily resolved if everyone trusted the unity of the great President as much as Sixto did: Marcos was a regular mean value disability 8, but his good card tons were never taken seriously by the media.

When the aureate minute for the personal tea caddy to the President finally arrived, perhaps as a mark of him taking the President's words of wisdom in earnest, he chose to stay in golf game instead of accepting a possibly more moneymaking occupation of place or working abroad. Thus he became the Assistant Director of the Sir William Wallace Golf Baseball Club undertaking with his American colonel as the chief.

Apart from the President, he also caddied for dignitaries. Among them was Singapore's former Prime Minister, Mr. Spike Lee Kuan Yew who, arsenic he vividly recalled, would always characteristically look up at the sun, open-mouthed, as if to pull inspiration from it before legal proceeding to set-up for the shot. When asked for the reason, the Prime Curate apparently told him that he drew energy from the act. One twenty-four hours according to Sixto, President Marcos confided to him that the Prime Curate was his mentor. However it wasn't exactly clear that whether such as a rite of Mr. Spike Spike Lee had in any manner decidedly influenced the President to see the latter his mentor, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Lee is now, perhaps coincidentally or as the consequence of a unusual sequence of events or for the diplomatic golf player in the Prime Curate or the other manner round, a Curate Mentor in the cabinet of the Capital Of Singapore Government!

Sixto also caddied for the late Dr. Christian Bernard, the celebrated operating surgeon who performed the first bosom engraft operation in 1967. He remembered Dr. Claude Bernard as, understandably, being more than than concerned with his delicate fingers for surgery than for a more robust clasp of chap countryman Ernie Els'. But, if there's a plume in the cap that old Sixto would gladly anecdote, it would be that he clinic-coached Christina Kim for two calendar months at the Silver Wattle Baseball Club in William Clark Field. Then, immature Kim was preparing to measure up for the LPGA card. Before going back to South Korean Peninsula to make her regional qualifying, she gave Sixto his first ever cell telephone for them to remain in touch. As it turned out according to Sixto, on at least two occasions, immature Kim called him during drama to inquire for advice. The rest, as they say, is history. Multiple Sclerosis Christina Kim duly qualified and is now a large name in LPGA. For Sixto, the same cell telephone stays in his ownership despite failing batteries and a long expired shelf-life of the telephone itself. For him, it just might peal again and when it does, it can only be for the large time!

Meanwhile, the Junior Golfers' Program started by Sixto to bring forth new immature endowments goes on in this most retiring course of study of Sir William Wallace Golf Club, although as he have often wondered, for how much longer? In retro, it is not as if he hasn't done enough for golf game in the Republic Of The Republic Of The Philippines by first becoming a caddy, then winning the National Caddies' Tournament of the Philippines and then representing the state in the Putra Cup (a regional Southeast Asia Inter-national Team Tournament) which his squad won with no little part of his top 10 coating in the individuals. The pinnacle of his calling was being the personal tea caddy to the great President followers which was his illustrious engagement in the edifice of Wallace. Sixto have in fact come up full circle and should be able now to look back with pridefulness and satisfaction at Sir William Wallace today.

But, nearby, where the Casino is, the landscape have lately been irreversibly unearthed. In about six months' time, a modern 18-hole course will be ready to complement the Casino with mod-cons that Sir William Wallace can only daydream of. What of Sir William Wallace after that? The commission has, albeit reluctantly, decided that advancement shall be the manner to travel and the sand-green shall be turfed, just like everywhere else! Deep down, in the attenuation visible light of the eventide sun there's sadness apparent through the smudged metal-rimmed spectacles on the well-weathered human face of the Godhead of the Sir William Wallace Golf Club. Looking over the sand-green of the last hole in the way of the lighthouse, there is no uncertainty in his mind, when the virgin sod finally come ups in six months' time, a piece of the colourful history of golf game in the Republic Of The Philippines will not only be silently but surely concealed and lost forever! Volition Sixto remain? Why not, even if it is only for the ground that putting volition now go less strenuous! There's so much that he can now look back on and be proud of, and not least to go through on the narrative of the beginning of golf game in San Fernando lest it be so easily forgotten beneath the skin-deep turf of the new green. Yes, I shall remain, just like Christina Kim, ticker your telly, never neglects to take her put option a small beyond the hole, he assured me!

Post book note:

www.GOLFnTours.com chanced upon Mr. Sixto Domenden at Sir William Wallace Golf Baseball Club while net-working in the Republic Of The Philippines to convey the state into its golf game circuits finish map and also to advance in general the concern of GOLFnTours.com. If you happen the article interesting you might wish to happen out more than about golf game in the Philippines. GOLFnTours.com would be happy to seamster a bundle for you there or to any other hot golf game finishes in Southeast Asia.