Kamikaze does it again at the ToC

For the second straight year, Joe “Kamikaze” Camacho undershot the competition on the links as he walked away with first place in the 9th Annual Tournament of Champions this weekend at the Lao Lao Bay Golf Course.

Camacho recorded a score of 73 on the first round and a 75 in the second for a total of 148 while playing in conditions that could be described as less than perfect during the two-day event.

Kamikaze finished atop the top five members in the Championship Flight, ahead of Mark Blas, (74-79-153), Ronald Pablo (76-79-154), Dan Singh (79-76-154), and Sasaki Oliver (77-80-157).

The champion of Champions walked away with a trophy, $500 and a little something extra this year courtesy of one of the many sponsors. For his efforts, Camacho received a slot to participate in the Johnnie Walker Classic Pro-Am golf tournament paired with a tour pro in March of 2005, tentatively set for Beijing, China.

This was the ninth year that the ToC has been in existence, and the organizers said that this was the best in the successful series. It was definitely the best year for golfer Alex Aquiningoc, who won a new car when he sank a hole in one.

When Aquiningoc addressed his Titleist Pro-V One #7 on hole number 17, it was his 7th hole of the day. Now he has the feeling that all of those sevens must have been lucky for him.

“It completely escaped me that I was hitting at a Hole-in-One hole. I never saw it go in the hole, but I saw it hit the green. Then Reno Celis said ‘hole-in-one, hole-in-one!’ and I thought he was joking. I said, ‘Yeah right.’”

Aquiningoc said that he has been playing golf for over 12 years and that this was his first official time recording the feat, although he did sink one in Guam, while golfing with his friends. This afternoon he will be rewarded when he will drive off of the lot with a 2005 Ford Escape from Joeten Motors.

ToC chairman Rodney Klinge acknowledged that this year tournament was much better than any other. In fact, this year’s may have been too good.

“This was by far the greatest yet. We had over 50 percent more golfers this year. There were so many that we had to turn some 50-75 golfers away because there were just too many. We really didn’t anticipate that many golfers to show up after the first 300.”

According to Klinge, from the players to the sponsors, every part of the tournament has grown every year. The only disappointment for the chairman is that there were so many prizes left over.

“I wish there were more hole-in-ones’s. I wanted to give away more gifts and more of the money.”

Yasuhito Irinaka (76-81-157) finished first in the A Flight to lead Jae Ho Jun (78-79-157), Rick Kautz (82-78-160), Tsukasa Kuribayashi (78-83-161), and Mori Tashiyuki (82-80-162) in the top five.

For the B Flight it was Young Jin Jun (79-80-159) distancing himself from the top five, ahead of Steve Jang (81-84-165), Harry Deal (82-84-166), Rex Palacios (81-89-170), and Ikuo Katayama (88-83-171).

It was Edward Cho who was all alone in the C Flight finishing with a first round of 89 and a second round score of 87. Hot on his trail were Gil Santos (93-87-180), Das Krishnan (92-93-185), Vidal Camacho (89-97-186), and Cecilio Dela Cruz (95-92-187).

The top five Seniors were topped by Jesus Taitano (72-78-150), Nick Sablan (76-80-156), John Sheather (76-83-159), Eddie Peter (84-76-160), and Edward Manibusan (80-81-161).

Nobody finished ahead of Serafin Pablo in the Super Seniors (88-76-164), but Duke Yoo (82-83-165), Max DLG Camacho (89-80-169), Frank Castro (89-82-169), and Young Kim (84-89-173) came awfully close.

For the ladies, it was Noriko Togawa (85-81-166) who finished with the lowest gross score ahead of Leina Kim (92-90-182) and Alice Taitano (93-91-184). The lowest net score for the ladies was reeled in by Rose Tarpley, with a total of 146.6. She was followed by Rose Cunliffe (152.8) and Rhomana Ligons (153.4).

According to tournament organizer Ben Babauta, over 300 of the top golfers from around the region competed in what is widely regarded as one of the premiere tournaments in the area.

“It was all just so overwhelming in terms of the almost 300 golfers that we had, community response, sponsors, and players that came in from off island to participate. Definitely, Lao Lao did an excellent job for us. The course was great and the extra TLC shown to the organization committee was great unto itself.”

Though he couldn’t disclose any of the items in the works in particular for the 10th Annual ToC, Babauta said that the organizers aren’t wasting any time in preparing for the big event.

“Every year it gets bigger and bigger. Every year we raise the bar so there’s always a lot of excitement. In fact, we have already begun planning for next year’s ToC.”

The organizers would like to thank the hundreds of people that had a part in making the tournament successful once again.