A compact but talent-laden Thai roster, including four who have notched victories on the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour, goes all-out to re-stamp its class in the ICTSI Tagaytay Midlands which gets going today (Wednesday, May 15) at the Midlands layout in Tagaytay City.
Thanutra Boonraksasat spearheads the country’s perennial regional rivals’ campaign in the 54-hole championship, seeking not only a follow-up to her victory at Manila Southwoods last March but also make up for her final round meltdown that led to a third place effort to the last LPGT event at Royal Northwoods won in runaway fashion by Pauline del Rosario three weeks ago.
“I think we can go low here although it will boil down to putting,” said Del Rosario, priming for a series of tournaments in Florida, USA in her buildup for the LPGA Tour Q-School.
But three other Thais are also tipped to contend for top honors in the P750,000 event serving as the ninth leg of LPGT put up by ICTSI and organized by Pilipinas Golf Tournaments, Inc., including Supakchaya Pattaranakrueng, Onkanok Soisuwan and Saruttaya Ngam-usawan.
Pattaranakrueng nipped former three-time LPGT Order of Merit winner Cyna Rodriguez to snare the Luisita crown while Soisuwan topped the Mt. Malarayat stop, both last year while Ngam-usawan aims for a second crown after scoring a breakthrough at Northwoods in 2016.
Numa Gulyanamitta, Ajira Nualraksa and Tip Seeumpornroj are the three other Thais seeking to steal the thunder not only from their fancied compatriots but also from the country’s leading campaigners.
They include Del Rosario, who clinched the LPGT OOM title in her rookie year in 2017 and is oozing with confidence coming off a whopping 14-shot romp over Daniella Uy at Northwoods, along with multi-titled Chihiro Ikeda, Marvi Monsalve, Alex Etter, Apple Fudolin, Gretchen Villacencio, Lucy Landicho, Sarah Ababa, Sheryl Villasencio and Uy.
Completing the cast in the event backed by Custom Clubmakers, Meralco, K&G Golf Apparel, BDO, Sharp, KZG, PLDT, Empire Golf and Sports and M.Y. Shokai Technology, Inc. are Koreans Choi Kim and Da Yun Kang and Valerie Tan of Bahrain.