{"id":328009,"date":"2020-08-12T06:04:39","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T20:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=328009"},"modified":"2020-08-12T06:04:39","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T20:04:39","slug":"25th-tournament-of-champions-moved-to-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/25th-tournament-of-champions-moved-to-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"25th Tournament of Champions moved to 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_328006\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-328006\" style=\"width: 335px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/toc-pix-1.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-328006\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In this file photo, J.J. Atalig takes his time before going for a shot during the second and final round of last year\u2019s Governor\u2019s Tournament of Champions at the Laolao Bay Golf &amp; Resort. (Saipan Tribune)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The silver anniversary of the Governor\u2019s Tournament of Champions has been pushed back to next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>The 25th edition of the biggest golf tournament in the CNMI was supposed to take place last Aug. 8 and 9 on the west and east courses of the Laolao Bay Golf &amp; Resort.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe TOC board of directors and organizing committee has decided to postpone the 25th Governor\u2019s Tournament of Champions this year and moved it to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  We will set a new date later by year end 2020,\u201d TOC tournament director Ben Babauta said.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_328007\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-328007\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/tocpix2-300x222.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-328007\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guam\u2019s Louie Sunga places the ball on the greens. (Saipan Tribune)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>First held in 1996, TOC is held annually to raise funds for beautification projects in the CNMI, particularly the sites that are frequented by tourists. For more than two decades, the tournament, its sponsors, and the people who organized the competition, have supported projects that enhanced tourist spots here, including the Paseo de Marianas, Port to Pathway, and Garapan Street Revitalization Project\u2013Coral Tree Avenue, the Gualo Rai\/Navy Hill intersections, north and south medians, Francisco C. Ada\/Saipan International Airport, and Mt. Tapochao\u2019s landscape\/railings among others.<\/p>\n<p>On the sports side, the tournament has attracted players across Asia and became a testing ground for local golfers who went on to represent the CNMI in various regional and international tournaments. Among the notable Commonwealth players in the TOC are Tony Satur, Joe \u201cKamikaze\u201d Camacho, Jeff Taylor, J.J. Atalig, CNMI Attorney General Edward Manibusan, and the late Jess Wabol.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, TOC\u2019s centerpiece Championship Flight was won by Guam\u2019s Louis Sunga for his fifth victory in the competition. Camacho also triumphed in the 2019 edition of the event that drew more than 200 golfers after ruling the Senior Flight, while other top finishers were Henry Liang (A Flight), Joel Hocog (B Flight), Suryong Kim (C Flight), Nick Sablan (Super Seniors), Chang Hee Yoo (Ladies Low Gross), and Mio Kim (Ladies Low Net).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The silver anniversary of the Governor\u2019s Tournament of Champions has been pushed back to next&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":328006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}