{"id":404009,"date":"2024-01-26T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=404009"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Abalos-tops-Round-1-of-Aces-of-Aces-tourney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Abalos-tops-Round-1-of-Aces-of-Aces-tourney\/","title":{"rendered":"Abalos tops Round 1 of Aces of Aces tourney"},"content":{"rendered":"

July winner Edgar Abalos topped the first round of the season-ending 2023 Fil-Taga Ace of Aces Tournament held last Jan. 13 at the Coral Ocean Resort in Agingan.<\/p>\n

The 61-year-old Pacific Islands Club Saipan guest service supervisor shot a net score of 68 after firing a gross of 80 built around a 39 in the front nine and a 41 in the back nine.<\/p>\n

Abalos said he\u2019s fortunate that his driver and approach shots were working in Day 1 of the yearly tournament, as he\u2019s putting completely deserted him two Saturdays ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutting wasn\u2019t working and a lot of my birdie chances didn\u2019t go on. It\u2019s actually my lowest score for a while and the first time I broke into 80. I used to be a single handicapper when I played a lot, but I lack practice now and seldom play golf anymore,\u201d he said in Filipino.<\/p>\n

As for the course and weather conditions, Abalos said the weather was fine and as usual the COP is a wide and long course which is advantageous to long strikers like him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to dedicate the win to my family as always. They always support me in my golf as well as running and biking hobbies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Coming into tomorrow\u2019s Round 2, Abalos said his strategy is to hopefully improve his putting and that his unfamiliarity with the LaoLao Golf & Resort course won\u2019t be too much of a hindrance.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood luck to Fil-Taga Ace of Aces qualifiers tomorrow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A stroke back of Abalos for second place on the opening round of the Fil-Taga Ace of Aces tourney was Bert Suda as the alternate for June shot a net 69 on the strength of his 86 gross (43-43), while currently running third is November winner Tom Palikkun who registered a net 70 (79, 40-39).<\/p>\n

A total of 17 Fil-Taga members took part in the Jan. 13 competition and the rest of the players are the following with their net scores in parenthesis: William Retardo (71), October\u2019s Dad Krishnan (71), Henry Bautista (72), May\u2019s Freddie Cataluna (74), December\u2019s Adony Matutino (75), defending champion Ruben Avendano (76), Mike Cruz (79), April\u2019s Emil Pedernal (79), February\u2019s Hak Chon Bae (80), January\u2019s Dan Ganacias (80), August\u2019s Albert Pajarillaga (81), March\u2019s Tony Cabrera (83), September\u2019s Ronnie Santos (84), and Joe Miranda (gross 99).<\/p>\n

The second round of the 2023 Fil-Taga Ace of Aces Tourney will be held tomorrow at the west course of LaoLao Bay Golf & Resort. The awards banquet will be held in the evening at Lucky Bill\u2019s Restaurant in Garapan.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Participants of the 2023 Fil-Taga Ace of Aces Tournament held last Jan. 13 pose for a group shot at the Coral Ocean Resort in Agingan.<\/p>\n

-CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
\n
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July winner Edgar Abalos topped the first round of the season-ending 2023 Fil-Taga Ace of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-404009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404009","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}