THOUGHTS | THE MANGO TEE GOLF MESS

There’s this story going around about a golf tournament, and I feel like chiming in.

I came across it through an Edu Manzano Facebook post and a SPIN.PH article, where he discussed two politicians from prominent families who allegedly cheated their way to victory in a prestigious tournament by padding their scores.

From what I gathered, the so-called winners were met with a chorus of boos, and the tournament board later said that the scores were “highly unusual and statistically improbable.” Normally, I guess, it would’ve been easy for the people involved to just sweep the issue under the rug—but unfortunately for them, golf isn’t something you can fake with a 2-by-2 plank. This was held at Alabang Golf Club, for crying out loud.

Remember the movie Alabang Girls? Sure, it exaggerated the divide between the rich and the poor to almost absurd levels, but if you actually live in or know that area, there’s a kernel of truth there.

Anyway, it feels like the only way a rich politician ever really gets called out is when other rich people do it—or when social media piles on.

In this case, they had to deal with both.

Haha.

I don’t really know much about golf, so I asked ChatGPT to dumb the situation down for me.

What it told me next had me laughing like hell.

A golfer scoring 52 points from a gross 80 while carrying a 24 handicap raises red flags because those numbers don’t normally belong together—someone with that handicap usually shoots in the mid-90s, not just eight over par, and 52 Stableford points is way beyond what even a “great day” looks like.

In simple terms, it’s like a bench player who usually averages 5 points suddenly dropping 45 in the Finals without missing a shot—not impossible, but so unlikely that people immediately start asking questions.

That’s why tournament officials call it “statistically improbable”: the performance is far beyond what the player’s past record says they’re capable of, which in golf often points to score padding, ignored penalties, or a conveniently inflated handicap rather than a miracle round.

That's not good.

Not good at all.

Sure, maybe the golfers just had a great breakfast and showed up inspired. Maybe they went full Rocky mode—trained like hell, pushed themselves in extreme conditions, and suddenly leveled up. But if that were really the case, the other players would’ve acknowledged it. They’d be jerks for booing guys who genuinely worked hard to improve their game.

Which brings us back to the reality of the situation. In times like these, weeding out lousy, traditional politicians isn’t just good for sporting events—it’s good for the country in general. For rich kids from well-known political families, politics often feels like an inheritance.

What they need to realize is that politics isn’t a playground. They’re under a microscope now, and every move they make can either build or destroy their future.

And if this is how they carry themselves in sports, then it’s fair to ask: what does that say about how they’ll behave when it comes to actually serving the people?