Story & Photos by Mike Besa
At this time last year, we marveled at the transformation of the Villamor Golf Club with the revival of the Philippine Masters on the Philippine Golf Tour (PGT).
The club scrambled to get the course ready for the revival of the once iconic tournament. When they were done, the once scruffy layout had morphed into a Tour-quality championship track. Fairways were well defined with a distinct cut of rough and the greens were very good. They were still grainy and didn’t receive the golf ball ideally but they were exponentially better than they were normally. It wasn’t ideal, but what they had was more than acceptable.
As you read this the second Philippine Masters on the PGT has come and gone and true to form, the Villamor Golf Club responded yet again and took the condition of the golf course up another couple of notches.
To prepare for this year’s tournament, the club set about making the golf course a better challenge to the professionals on the Tour. First they lengthened the golf course by building new tee boxes where feasible. This tacked on more than a few yards to the golf course. Not an earth-shaking difference, but enough to make the already narrow fairways just a bit harder to find. Attention was also paid to the bunkers and the definition of the fairways.
Nothing defines the golf experience like perfectly manicured greens and this is where Villamor impressed us the most. The greens were fabulous. They were perfectly manicured and devoid of all imperfections. These have become the best zoysia greens outside of Wack Wack’s East Course. They are quick, if a bit grainy. Well, perhaps a lot grainy. But that is zoysia’s character and is part of what makes the game at Villamor unique. It’s a hardy endemic species and when healthy, can be treated like any modern turf grass to provide the desired playing characteristics. It works very well at Wack Wack, Calatagan, Canlubang and here at Villamor.
The changes made the golf course tougher and more of a challenge for the professionals. This year’s winning score was just 3-under par after four days of competition; three strokes less than the winning score last year. The golf course showed her teeth and put everyone on notice that the home of the Philippine Masters was as tough a golf course as they come.
The man responsible is the new general manager of VGC, Maj. Gen.Guillermo “Gems” Molina AFP (retired). A dynamic workaholic and an admitted renaissance man, he attacked his responsibilities at Villamor the way he would any battle. He dove in head first, examined the club from top to bottom going through system after system. Although a non-golfer, he was quick to see the potential of having a top golf course so close to the urban center.
Gen. Molina has big plans for VGC. He sees a multi-use facility with a ton of commercial potential. Some of the ideas make total sense. Others stray from the club’s core purpose and could compromise the quality of the golf on offer. As we now know from the Boracay experience, overdevelopment compromises the core product and. while potentially profitable in the near to mid-term, it could be disastrous further down the road. The key is focus on the club’s core asset—the golf experience.
Getting the golf course in the condition that it’s in today opens all kinds of possibilities for the club—golf tourism chief among these. This is a huge market virtually untapped in this country. The hosting of the Asian Golf Tourism Convention by the Department of Tourism is bound to change this forever. The Philippines has been a kind of Rubik’s cube for the world golf tourism market. The world knows there’s good golf here but is totally in the dark about how to gain access to this treasure trove of golf. This was addressed during the convention, which saw record attendance levels—proof positive of the interest among the locators and tour operators.
Villamor Golf Club positioned itself at the burgeoning industry’s forefront. It participated in the AGTC and gained exposure to golf tour operators from all over the globe. Interest was high and many of the delegates took time to take a familiarization tour of the golf course. Things are looking pretty rosy.
The key to unlocking any potential profit from golf tourists is, as with golf, to mind the fundamentals. For golf tourists, these are the course’s condition (the quality of the greens are paramount), cleanliness and the standard of service. Other relevant products and services (good food, spa and other services) help add value but the fundamentals carry more weight. A hotel on the premises makes sense and could add significant value to the club.
Molina strikes us as a good man, a man of integrity. Perhaps, his failing is that he has limited experience in the game and it is this lack of experience that is at the root of the less conventional changes that he’s considering. We believe that when push comes to shove, he will do right by the club and by the game of golf. As noted above, he has some very good, fundamentally sound ideas to move the club into the future.
We wish him well and look forward to a modern, dynamic Villamor Golf Club.