THE SUN shone on the greens of the Splendido golf course, and the sound of the arid winds whipping all 18 golf flags echoed as the Ateneo Golf Team waited for their Valentines’ day dates: top-runners and junior golf champions, the College of Saint Benilde (CSB).
It would be their second and last meeting in the finals of the Intercollegiate Championships. For the gentlemen in Blue, it was a match-up that usually ended in heartbreak. But as captain Ayon Sanchez rallied-in his troop of 15 to deliver his last words of wisdom, not a single faint of defeat could be heard.
This being his last ever golf match for Ateneo, Sanchez wilted out everything to motivate his team.
“We have character that they can only dream of,” he said, “and how you play this game defines who you are as a person, it defines you are in life. I don’t care about golf, but I will win in life.”
There was only one objective for the Ateneo captain: to win.
The defining moment
Coming into the second day of the championship play-off, both teams were tied at one point a piece.
With a two point advantage on the 16th hole, standing on the edge of the green was co-captain Gab Atienza.
As he calmly and coolly hit the deciding putt of the season, his coach, Kevin Lachica, his teammates, and his partner throughout the entire 10-week intercollegiate tournament, Sanchez, watched in anticipation as the white dimpled ball rolled its way into the hole.
Raising his fist in victory, Atienza turned to his family of golfers as the gallery of blue swarmed him, screaming, jumping and celebrating in triumph.
The birdie putt marked the Ateneo golf team’s third championship crown of the season. It was an emotional victory that cemented them as the best, and gave birth to a new golf dynasty.
“No one was expecting that putt,” Sanchez says, “Gab was the furthest one from the hole, so he technically had the most difficult shot.”
Atienza and Sanchez’s victory in the high-low format signified that only a tie from the other pair of Edsel Tan and Rocca Sumabat—playing in the best ball format—was needed to secure the championship.
The silent assassins
As the sun set, the greens were cleared, and the CSB duos left the home of Ateneo golf, only one team stood atop of the hill. After a grueling season, team Ateneo vanquished their reputation of being a mere ‘pretty boy team.’
Now they not only looked the best, but they are the best.
Sporting farmer day-long tans, watermelon grins, and soaked in cerveza, this elite group of golfers are Ateneo’s silent assassins. Their clean-cut, kind looking demeanor may deceive you, but these lethal golfers prove that golf is not always a gentlemen’s sport.
Armed with three golden trophies, a passionate leader in Sanchez, and the heart and undying determination to win; throughout the season they have killed off opponents UP, CSB, DLSU, UAP, and Lyceum one by one.
“It was our time,” Sanchez says.
Having fallen short to top-guns La Salle and CSB for the last three years, this year graduating seniors Sanchez, Johan Gaisano See, and Laine Lumanog were not going to tolerate another second place finish to their Green counterparts.
A winning perspective
New coach Kevin Lachica—former captain and currently the only USPGA (US Professional Golfers Association) trained coach in the Philippines—brought with him playing experience and training methods that steered the Ateneo golf team to all three major championships: the PCSO, the Samsung Interscholastic, and the prestigious and the prestigious National Intercollegiate Championships.
But more than his expertise, Lachica instilled in his team a sense of self belief. “I empower my players, I make it a point to show and to preach to them that you are the best and no one in this country can beat you,” he says.
“Because if you step on the golf course without that winning mentality, you will fail.”
Coming into this season, Lachica had essentially the same team he captained during his 2005-2006 season; at that time Sanchez was still a freshman.
While Lachica always believed that this crop of players could defeat any school, it was only this year they realized that they had the capacity to win.
“Last year the team was happy with competing and coming close to winning.” Sanchez says.
Golf requires a high degree of concentration, loyalty and technicality, but it was Ateneo’s winning mentality which lead them to success.
“We just wanted to win, we are pushed by all heart,” Atienza says.
More than just a game
For these Ateneo golfers, golf is more than just a sport. It is a game of character, about overcoming one’s own demons, fears, and rising to the challenge when your opponent makes an unexpected long putt.
Sanchez says, “It’s a competition against yourself in trying to be better than who you were yesterday.”
Having swept all three major tournaments, their resurrection from being a second place team is a testament of their character.
“They have the heart of champions,” Lachica says.
And while the young Ateneo coach says that golf is mental sport involving precision hand-eye coordination, he says that above all, golf is heart.
Next season the Blue Golfers will be looking to defend their championships. After such a long and difficult struggle they are motivated to train even harder to maintain their position at the top of the hill. But for now, celebratory cheers are all around.
