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Iloilo Golf to launch Sta. Barbara Golf Centenary

On January 14, 15 and 16, 2005, the Iloilo Golf and Country Club will hold the 1st major golf tournament in the Sta. Barbara Golf Course, traditionally known as the Mayor's Cup. 

In addition, highlighting this year's first major local golf tournament will be the launching and bringing to the greater awareness of the public, the initial preparations for the upcoming grand year-long commemoration of the hundred-years since the birth of the Philippine's oldest golf course come 2007. The countdown to history of the ‘Sta. Barbara Golf Course Centenary' begins two years from the day on Saturday, January 15, 2005 .

A century ago, sometime around 1907, Scottish engineers on the construction trail of the Panay Railways, discovered a patch of rolling hills in barangay San Sebastian, Sta Barbara, Iloilo, reminiscent of the fields of Scotland, goading them irresistibly onto a pastime they call their ‘national sport'… golf! And off they would merrily whack small, white ‘gutta-percha' balls onto the rolling grasslands just off the railroad tracts. So was the game of golf born in the Philippine islands. 

Sta. Barbara Golf Course Centenary Chair, Mr. Menieng Maravilla  and Mr. Henry Go, Chair-designate of this year's Mayor's Cup tournament, have indicated the need to bring the historical wonder and local tourist attraction that is the Old Sta. Barbara Golf Course, the only one in the island of Panay, closer to the Golfing world's and the public's consciousness and attention. It was the only affiliate golf Club in the Philippines then of the Scotland-based Royal and Ancient Golf Club, where golf is said to have originated more than 250 years ago and, up to now, acts as the governing body of world golf.

Not only has the course been nurtured by the watchful eyes of the proud pioneering Ilonggo golfers of old, it has been expanded, remodeled through the years and lovingly manicured to its present grandeur by the present generation of Ilonggo golfers.

The tourism potentials and the promotional reach of the game of golf is real, unequaled and enormous, not just here but more so internationally. For this reason as Mr. Henry Go suggests, our local government officials also must realize that much mileage can be gained both for Iloilo City and the Province in general in launching and supporting an event as unique and unprecedented as “the national golf Centenary” during one of the January Ilonggo festivals in honor of the Sto. Nino, the Dinagyang.

This early, Globelines, the main presentor, with Mitsubishi Motors, PLDT, Pediatrica, Aviva Ins., Samsung, Philippine Airlines, Medicus Inc., and PhilAmLife have expressed major commitments to this celebration.

Aware of their golf course's great history, the Ilonggo golfing ambassadors will be in the forefront of the Philippine's nationwide celebration of the birth of this enormously popular gentleman's game called golf.

Trophies, Giveaways, Hole-in-one, Raffle Prizes galore await the golfers in the much awaited major tourney.