NGAP chief Panlilio raves about Philippine Open revival, formidable teams

CARMONA, Philippines — The Philippine Open will play the biggest version of its 108-year existence starting Thursday, and no man — and agency — is prouder than Al Panlilio and the National Golf Association of the Philippines (NGAP) for making this happen.

With $1 million (around P64 million) staked for the week, this edition — to be held at Manila Southwoods Masters for the second straight year — holds the biggest pot this tournament has ever dangled as the best of the Asian Tour have come with a handful of foreign bets seeking to seal an Order of Merit win.

After reviving the Open last year as NGAP chair, the legacy of the 63-year-old Panlilio's involvement in sports is such, as he was also at the forefront of the Philippines' hosting of the Fiba World Basketball Championship a few years back when he still headed the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas Inc. 

A former basketball player at Ateneo before becoming a golf nut in his much-documented corporate life, Panlilio is serving the first of his two years in the first term of his presidency of the NGAP as he aims to unify the local golf community by making it rally behind a national team program he wants to revive, through, among other things, the National Training Center (NTC).

"That's the ultimate plan, the legacy I want to leave at the NGAP — this will be a game-changer for the sport," said Panlilio as he bared the rising of the NTC in the very near future where players of Philippine Team potential will get the chance to practice and be coached there for high-level play.

While with the SBP, Panlilio and other stakeholders of the sport banded together to make the Gilas Pilipinas program as solid as it can be, and the result was continuous stints in the World Cup, winning the Asian Games gold again after six decades, and a sustained drive to make it back to the Olympics again.

"The NTC for golf will make sure that our national athletes are well-taken care of," Panlilio said. "Our target would be to make sure that the Philippines returns to being the yardstick in our region and to make Olympics stints in golf a regular fare."

Funding would be a critical part of that plan, and the first master stroke for Panlilio and the NGAP was to channel most of the additional fees they charged for handicapping earlier in the year into the national team program.

"There's no better way to do that than make every golfer in the country as stakeholders," he said. "And we at the NGAP will be responsible in making that happen. We will be answerable to our stakeholders. That's why we want to make the national team click again."

Meanwhile, Panlilio has his focus on the Open and will be cheering on a local bet to win at the Masters as he tries to make the event as prestigious and lucrative in the coming years by entering into a partnership with the Philippine Sports Commission through Chairman Patrick Gregorio.

"We will definitely hold it again next year and beyond," Panlilio said. "We will try our best to make it bigger because this tournament is held in such high regard because of its history.” (Pool story)

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