Golf in the Philippines

Golf is thought to have been introduced by foreign workers for the Manila Railway Company in late Nineteenth Century. They built a 3-hole course in rice-paddy south of Intramuros, and by early 1900’s there was a 9-hole golf course next to the railway station. This was the beginning of the Manila Golf Club.

The Manila Golf Club staged its first Philippine Open competition in 1913 making it one of the oldest tournaments in the world. The Club was then an exclusive club for foreigners. In 1935 the club moved the tournament to the famous Wack Wack Golf Club following the win the previous year by the first Filipino, Larry Montes, to mark the openning of the club to foreigners as well as locals.

Inspite of that, the character of the club did not change much and remained so for quite some years until the emergence of notable local players like Celestino Tugot, who won the Club’s Open in 1956, Ben Arda and Luis Silvero who became the only amateur to ever win the Open in 1966. To the delights of the local fans of the sport, more Filipino winners followed in later years in the likes of Casiano Decena, Quintin Mancao, Guillermo Narvaja and others that together making the Philippines the golf leading nation in Southeast Asia in the 70’s and 80’s.

The formations of the National Golf Association of the Philippines (NGAP) and the Asian Tour as the premiere professional tour of the region took a bit of a shine from the nation from its leading role among Southeast Asian countries active in golf. Nonetheless, new golf talents continue to emerge on the local scene and excel in the Asian as well as the European and International Tours and, foreign golfers keen to explore the golf courses in the Philippines as well as its natural beauty continue to flock into this ‘Country of Thousands of Islands’.

Read more about golf and golf in general in the Philippines in our Articles page.

Philippine – General Information:

The Republic of the Philippines is located in South East Asia (in the region sometimes referred to as Asia-Pacific). The country is an archipelago of over 7,000 volcanic islands between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea. The Philippines is south-west of China and Hong Kong, east of Vietnam and Thailand, and north of Indonesia and Australia. To the right-hand side of the archipelago there is nothing but a vast expanse of clear blue ocean (and a few small Pacific islands) until you reach Hawaii or Mexico.

The country is favorably located in relation to many of Southeast Asia’s main water bodies: the South China Sea, the Philippine Sea, the Sulu Sea, the Celebes Sea, and the Luzon Strait. Due to the fact that the Philippines is an archipelago, it has no land borders with other countries. The terrain is mostly mountainous with narrow to extensive coastal lowlands. The highest point in the Philippines is Mount Apo on the island of Mindanao, which reaches a height of about 3,000 meters. The Philippines is rich in natural resources including timber, petroleum, nickel, cobalt, silver, gold, salt, and copper. It has extensive coral reefs and coastal mangrove swamps that are important fish breeding grounds. There are also a very large number of endemic species – some of which are very rare. An example is the Philippine Tarsier; a small fuzzy creature with big eyes that lives on trees on the island of Bohol.