On heels of dream season, Tabuena is player to beat
Miguel Tabuena adds star power to the rich The Country Club Invitational field that gets going on Jan. 27 and is automatically listed as the player to beat in the P6.5 million championship.
The 31-year-old Tabuena, who won his last big event on Philippine soil when he beat a field that had three former US Masters champions at Sta. Elena, in the International Series event last October, will be trying to win the event for the second time and first in nine years.
“He’s going to play two straight tournaments,” swing coach J3 Altea told the Inquirer in confirming Tabuena’s schedule. “After TCC, he’s also playing Wack Wack (the $500,000 Asian Tour’s PH President’s Cup) in the first week [of February].”
Tabuena is brandishing fine form of late, even after falling a tad short in making the LIV Golf roster last week in Florida.
His recent body of work speaks louder than any missed opportunity, affirming his status as the standard-bearer of Philippine golf on the international stage.
Serving as the traditional kickoff leg of every PGT season, the TCC Invitational also remains the richest event in local golf. The sponsoring ICTSI has raised the stakes anew, bumping the total purse to P6.5 million, reinforcing its status as the crown jewel of the domestic circuit, with every leg guaranteeing at least P2 million.
A champion here in 2017, Tabuena will undoubtedly carry the proverbial bull’s-eye on his back. He enters the event fresh off a stellar campaign on the Asian Tour International Series, where he finished third in the Order of Merit, a feat that places him in rare company and well ahead of most of his peers.
He nearly pulled off back-to-back victories in 2018, only to be denied by Korean American Micah Shin, who edged him by a single stroke in a dramatic finish. Shin thus became the first nonFilipino champion of the PGT’s flagship tournament. Dutchman Guido van der Valk later followed suit, claiming consecutive titles in 2020 and 2023, with the 2021 and 2022 editions shelved due to the pandemic.
Veteran Tony Lascuña added his second TCC crown in 2024, while Korean Gwon Minwook is the defending champion.
