Successful
Panamex-Pepsi East-West-Manu'a golf tourney
by Brian Vitolio
The Panamex-Pepsi
East-West-Manu'a golf tournament was a success, raising close
to $7,000 for the local junior golf association.
"All the
money goes to them, we keep nothing of it," said David Robinson,
General Manager of Panamex Pacific, the major sponsor of the
tournament. "The money is for them to use to buy equipment
and enable them to travel off island to compete and better their
skills."
"David Robinson
and Panamex Pacific have been involved the past four years in
helping to raise money for our junior golf program and also our
national teams last year for the South Pacific Games and for
that we are very thankful," said Ike Scanlan, treasurer
for the American Samoa Junior Golf Association.
There were a
lot of raffle prizes handed out last Saturday during the tournament's
awards ceremony held inside the Night Hawk Club at the golf course
in Ili'ili, and also a new champion was crowned.
If you upend
the results from last year, you've got the winners for this year
with Manu'a and the West teams switching places while the East
stays in its same spot from last year, second place with a total
score of 1,204.
The West jumped
from a third place finish last year to first in switching places
with Manu'a. The West team had an overall score of 1,193 while
Manu'a finished with 1,216.
In the individual
team's competition, Ace American Industries was the overall winner
with a 218, followed by American Samoa Golf Association, edging
third place winner StarKist by a stroke 221-222, respectively.
Hitting the longest
drive on hole #10 for the women was Lydia Faleafine-Nomura and
for the men it was Fred.
The closest to
the hold winners were Chande Lutu-Drabble for the women while
Tua won it on the men's side.
The low net score
winner for the women was Fili while Tua got the nod again for
the men in this department.
For the birdie
specials, Ukulele Ho Ching won it for the 15th hole, Tua won
it on the 9th, Dennis Fuimaono beat everybody out on the 6th
with an eagle while Siope Tanoi won hole #1.
Two items were
with Tanoi out bidding everybody else on a Cleveland golf bag
donated by Wayne Fonoti and a Poleris driver. Willie Teleso,
the emcee of the awards ceremony, priced the golf bag at more
than $200 and started the bidding at $100 and was sold to Tanoi
for $140. He won the driver with a $40 bid.
Teleso thanked
Robinson and Panamex during the awards ceremony.
"He is a
hands on sponsor who's out there helping to raise money on behalf
of junior golf," Teleso pointed out.
Robinson, in
comments to the golfers last Saturday, said "it was a really
good effort for everybody to come out and support the tournament
given the amount of golf that has been played the last couple
of weeks."
The Shriner's
and Rotary golf tournaments were also held this month.
Scanlan said
that they have not yet decided how they are going to use the
money yet.
"We usually
use it to pay for our local junior golfers to go and play at
the Junior Golf World Championships that's held in San Diego
every year," Scanlan explained. "But we've been thinking
of sending our junior golfers instead to compete in Hawaii because
that way they can stay there longer and play every day."
He also said
that if they decide on Hawaii, they will be able to take a lot
more junior golfers than if they have to send a team to San Diego.
They have until the summer to decide on where they will send
their golfers to compete at.
Panamex Pacific
was the main sponsor of the tournament while the co-sponsors
were ANZ Amerika Samoa Bank, Origin Energy, Bank of Hawaii and
PDL (Pacific Direct Line Ltd).
Reach the
reporter at sports@samoanews.com.
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