Cebuana Gabasa still within striking distance

CEBUANA golfer Junia Gabasa faces an uphill climb heading to the final round of the Philippine Junior Amateur Golf Championship at the Sherwood Hills Golf Club in Trece Martires, Cavite as she settled for a one-over 73 to fall behind by three to highly touted Harmie Constantino yesterday.

Her sizzling first round 72 far behind her, the younger sister of top golfer Irina Gabasa failed to match Constantino’s start of 36 with a two-over card and settled for a 73 but is still within striking distance with an aggregate of 222.

The Cebuana knows what she needs to pull off the win.

“I need to be more committed to my shots off the tee and confident in my birdie putts, especially the close ones,” she said. “I’ll continue to focus on my game and have fun in every part of it.”

Constantino built on her one-stroke lead over Gabasa by sinking five birdies to make up for a double-bogey on No. 15 and two bogeys for a 71 and a 219.

Nicole Abelar also moved within two with a solid two-under 34 start. But she lost steam and momentum at the back, bogeying Nos. 12 and 14 and finishing with a 38 and a 72. She fell five strokes off the pace with a 224.

On the boys side, Luis Castro stumbled with a first over-par card but still stretched his lead to nine with a 73.

Castro, who posted a commanding eight-stroke lead after 36 holes with a pair of 71s, bucked an early pair of double bogeys with birdies on Nos. 7 and 8 then birdied the par-5 15th for the third straight day to save a 38-35 card and all but wrapped up the boys’ championship with a 215 aggregate.

That was nine strokes ahead of Sean Ramos, who failed to cash in on Castro’s shaky start and finished with a higher card of 74 for a 224 while Carl Corpus also wound up with a 74 and fell 11 strokes behind at 226 heading to the final 18 holes.