Things Pinoy Golfers Like #6

Raffle Prizes

Almost every week, there are golf tournaments that the Pinoy Golfer could join and compete, most especially in the military golf courses in Metro Manila. In my experience of more than one year assignment in Camp Aguinaldo (seat of the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Phlipines), the Camp Aguinaldo Golf Course caters to at least 35 Golf Clubs whose members are being spread out from the different professionals, businessmen, doctors, politicians, actors, active & retired military personnel, and other groups of individuals. Most of these Golf Clubs conduct monthly tournaments.

The centerpoint of these tournaments are the raffle prizes that the lucky Pinoy Golfer/s could bring home to make his wife happy as these raffles prizes serve as “gifts” to the woman in the house. These tournaments have a corresponding ticket which amounts to two thousand to two thousand five hundred pesos per piece (P2,000-P2,500). In each ticket, it has a stub for the raffle prizes, a stub for the green fee & caddy fee, and a stub for the snacks & meals at designated snack bars along the golf course. The most important stub in one’s ticket is the raffle prize. The Pinoy Golfer would personally place his stub at the raffle bin/”tambiolo” just to be sure that he is included in the raffle.

I know of so many golfers who have completed their house appliances in their homes, from electric fans to flat irons to refrigirators and TV and air-conditoners. Most of the time for an ordinary tournament, the major prizes would be a 20-inch TV, a 10-cubic inch refrigirator, or an air-con unit (1.5 HP). Sometimes, there are also some minor prizes. In bigger and more prestigious tournaments supported and financed by well-known corporate sponsors, the prize for the “Hole-In-One”, if not taken by a lucky golfer who makes a “hole-in-one” in a designated hole, becomes a Raffle Prize! Most of the prizes in this category are brand-new cars!

I know of so many Pinoy Golfers who would join golf tournaments with the sole purpose of hoping to bring home one of the major raffle prizes.

I will never forget my experiences in so many tournaments where so many times I won Hair Dryer/Blower. It was really funny to be bringing home such items which I can not use because I am bald.

The truth is, raffle prizes in tournaments, is becoming the reason of a golfer-husband to have a valid reason to be out of the house during weekends and free from the guarding eyes of the wife. With a cheap stand electric fan or a flat iron or an oven toaster brought home by the husband could be a satisfaction from the eyes of the wife that her husband really participated in a tournament, it could be otherwise, as the husband could have bought the said item in one of the appliance stores and “wandered around” in other places except at the golf course.

But this “raffle prize” thing is no longer effective “alibi” for the golfer-husband to be away from the wife. My golf friend made a mistake on this. He did not know that his wife removed the Sand Wedge from his Golf Bag before he left for the golf tournament. When my friend returned home with an Oven Toaster as the item he won in the “golf tournament”, the wife asked him how many times did his ball landed on the Sand Trap. Of course, my friend proudly said that he almost landed in all the Sand Traps in the golf course but he luckily managed to bring his ball to the green and was able to save more strokes on his score. Well, my friend was immediately attacked by his wife with his Sand Wedge on her hands.

Moral lesson of the story? Play a legitimate golf tournament and hope to win a raffle prize and never use the tournament as an “alibi”. Be sure to physically check the contents of your golf bag and see if one of your golf clubs is missing.

More golf tournaments to join means more home appliances for the house…and the other houses.