Southeast Asian Games-bound Lois Kaye Go hopes to pick up where national teammate Rianne Malixi left off as she joins the title hunt in the ICTSI Hallow Ridge Challenge, which reels off on Wednesday at the Filipinas Golf Hallow Ridge in San Pedro, Laguna.
The Cebuana ace, who beat now LPGA Tour campaigners Bianca Pagdangangan and Thai sensation Atthaya Thitikul in the 2019 Philippine Amateur Stroke Play Championship at Riviera’s Langer course, spices up the cast as she tests her skills against the country’s leading pros as part of her buildup for next month’s SEAG battle where she, Malixi, and Mafy Singson will spearhead the country’s title-retention drive both in team play and individual competition.
Pagdanganan, Go and Abby Arevalo captured the team championship in the 2019 SEA Games at Luisita with the power-hitting Pagdanganan bagging the individual gold.
The 22-year-old Go, who graduated summa cum laude from the Univ. of South Carolina last year where she finished with a double major in finance and accounting, will be donning the national colors for the last time in Hanoi before finally launching her pro career.
Go will lead a four-player amateur challenge that includes Arnie Taguines, Eagle Ace Superal, and Kristine Fleetwood, all seeking to match Malixi’s successful title run in the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour at Midlands at the close of the 2021 season last December and at the ICTSI Luisita Championship, which kicked off this year’s circuit in Tarlac two weeks ago.
But they will be facing a fired-up pro crew out to reassert their might in the circuit organized by Pilipinas Golf Tournaments, Inc., headed by fancied Princess Superal along with leg winners Sunshine Baraquiel, Chanelle Avaricio and Daniella Uy.
“Consistency will be key, along with ball control and ball placing,” said Superal, noting some of the layout’s tight holes and tough greens.
“But anybody can win here since all of us have prepared hard. It all depends on how we will perform and respond to the various challenges,” added the 2019 LPGT Order of Merit winner.
Multi-titled Chihiro Ikeda is also going all out to snap a long spell, along with Sarah Ababa, also a former leg winner, Florence Bisera, Apple Fudolin, Lovelyn Guioguio, Lucy Landicho, Pamela Mariano, Eva Miñoza, Majorie Pulumbarit, Gretchen Villacencio, Sheryl Villasencio and Korean Jane Jeong.
One thing going for Go, however, is that the 2017 SEA Games bronze medalist has been playing Hallow Ridge for the last couple of weeks, the rolling layout being one of the training venues of both the men’s and women’s squads of the Hanoi-bound national golf contingent.
But experience and poise, on top of shotmaking, iron play and putting, will still be the norm in the P750,000 championship at the former KC Filipinas and TAT Filipinas layout, especially in the presence of the wind in all three days.
