Philippine Open cancelled at 11th hour

BY iseekgolf.com | Asian Tour | 2003 Philippine Open | General | 31 Jan 2003

Tournament organizers and the board of directors of Wack Wack Golf and Country Club, the traditional home of the country’s most prestigious golf championship, decided Wednesday night to call off the Open event the club planned to stage in March due to an argument with the National Golf Association of the Philippines over the use of the term “Philippine Open.”

Club officials led by chairman Benjamin Abalos said they cancelled their planned Wack Wack Philippine Open Golf Championship in disgust over the NGAP’s plan to take them to court for including the contentious term in the tournament’s title.

According to the statement, the NGAP considers Wack Wack’s use of “Philippine Open” as improper and claims it is the “lawful property” of the golf association.

However, club officials said they registered the tournament’s title at the Intellectual Property Office on May 7 last year while the NGAP registered the controversial phrase only on Oct. 24, 2002.

The statement further said the two titles “are not really the same, no matter how one looks at them.” It also quoted Abalos telling NGAP president Rod Feliciano that the golf body “can have it (the title).”

“Wack Wack does not deserve what you are trying to do to us after we have picked up the pieces of a dying (event), once the most prestigious and the very first international golfing event in Asia,” the release quoted Abalos telling Feliciano.

Officers of the club in Mandaluyong, which has hosted at least 50 of the first 87 Philippine Opens at its storied East course, had planned the event to be a part of the Asian PGA Tour and the final leg of the First Gentleman’s Professional Golf Circuit.

Source – Manila Times