Justin delos Santos fired a two-under-par 68 and Bianca Pagdanganan returned a 67 as the Filipino aces put themselves in the individual mix while towing the Philippine men’s and women’s squads well into the heat of the team battle as golf action in the Asian Games got off the ground at Kasugai Golf Club’s East course in Nagoya, Japan, on Wednesday.
Delos Santos overcame some tournament jitters once he was on the course, shooting four birdies against two bogeys to be three shots behind joint leaders Wang Wei-hsuan of Chinese Taipei and hometown star Kazuki Higa.
And counting the 69 of Carl Corpus that make up their opening 137, the Filipino men will start the second round just six shots off the leading Japanese, who counted the 66 of Keita Nakajima, with China and South Korea just two shots off the team lead after Mun Do-yeob fired a 66 and world No. 31 Tom Kim accounted for a 67.
Miguel Tabuena, one of the big stars in the men’s field, fired a steady 70 and failed to count for the Philippines, but is well within the individual battle being just five shots down entering the second round.
‘Once I got out of the clubhouse and got rid of all the Asian Games talk, I kind of got comfortable. The jitters were gone,’ the 31-year-old Delos Santos told the Inquirer over the phone as he plays for his country for the first time.
‘It’s not that big of a gap,’ Delos Santos said when asked of the six-stroke team deficit. ‘With two scores counting, we can make that up easily. We’re really not in a bad spot.’
Pagdanganan, meanwhile, ended the first 18 holes four shots out of the lead being held by Singapore’s world-rated Shannon Tan. Rianne Malixi, one of seven amateurs ranked in the world’s top 50 seeing action in Nagoya, submitting a level 70 as the Filipinas tallied a first round 137.
That is a good five shots behind the leading team score of the Singaporeans, who got a 69 from 17-year-old wonder Xingtong Chen as they will start the second round holding a four-shot edge on the South Koreans, the Taiwanese, Thailand and China, which drew a 67 from former world No. 1 Ruoning Yin.
Delos Santos, Corpus and Tabuena are searching for the first men’s golf gold since Ramon Brobio won in the 1986 edition in Seoul, South Korea, while the country is shooting for a first team gold since Yuka Saso-three years before switching nationalities to Japanese-led a women’s gold sweep in Jakarta in 2018.
Pagdanganan won the individual bronze that year and is motivated to improve on that.