Posted by ReyFort Media
There was a time when the PAL Interclub wasn’t just about the long hitters on the tee box; it was about the men and women in the gallery with notebooks tucked in their bags and the sharpest wits in the press room.
As the 77th edition of the Philippine Airlines Interclub kicks off this week, there is a noticeable, almost eerie silence hanging over the greens. For the first time in decades, the grizzled masters of the sports desk who could recount a hole-in-one from 1984 as if it happened yesterday are absent. Absent too is the traditional Media Golf side event, a tournament that served as both a competition and a sacred gathering of the industry’s finest.
In the past, the “Interclub” was a two-pronged beast. While the country’s top clubs battled for each division’s title, the media fought their own wars in the shadows of the main event. It was a time for camaraderie, late-night deadlines followed by early-morning tee times, and the kind of storytelling that turned a simple birdie into a legend.I can still remember the dean of sports writing Al Mendoza belting out his immortal Imagine by John Lennon or the husky Jake Ayson serenading the PAL Corp Comms ladies with his rendition of timeless Monalisa.
This year, that side event is gone. The press room feels thinner, the banter quieter. The loss of the media tournament isn’t just about missing out on a few rounds of golf; it’s about the uprooting of a bridge between the sport and the public.
The timing feels bittersweet for me personally. As I look back at the 76th edition in Bacolod last year, I realize I am holding onto a unique, albeit lonely, distinction.
Winning the media category in Bacolod was an honor I wore with pride, but I never imagined it would make me a “final” champion. Standing on those fairways in the City of Smiles, surrounded by the echoes of past greats, I felt the weight of the tradition. Now, with the media event scrapped, I find myself as the last custodian of that legacy—the reigning champion of a tournament that may never return.
It is a title I’ll hold onto, but one I would gladly trade to see my colleagues back on the course, arguing over missed putts and laughing about the number of balls lost.
Perhaps the most telling sign of this shift is found in the very medium we used to dominate. A day before the 77th edition kicks off, a quick scan of the major dailies reveals a startling void.
The PAL Interclub—once the “Granddaddy” of Philippine golf, a tournament that commanded front-page sports headlines and multi-page spreads—is curiously absent from the morning editions. Where there used to be deep-dive previews, roster analyses, and historical retrospectives, there is now a vacuum.
The tournament remains the most prestigious club competition in the country, but without the dedicated media machinery that fueled its mythos for seventy years, it feels like a private conversation rather than a national event.
Golf is a game of memory. We remember the wind on the Binitin, the slick greens of Apo and the heat of Cebu. But those memories are kept alive by the people who write them down.
As the 77th PAL Interclub begins, the players will still swing, the scores will still be tallied, and a winner will eventually be crowned. But without the veteran writers to contextualize the struggle, and without the media tournament to keep the chroniclers invested in the grass-roots spirit of the game, something vital has been lost.
I’ll keep my trophy from Bacolod on the cabinet, a reminder of the 76th edition and a tradition that once was. But as the first ball is struck this year, I can’t help but feel that the loudest sound on the course is the silence from the press box.
ReyFort Media 
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