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Course familiarity key as North prepares to defend ‘Elite’ title

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Suzuki Shinichi —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Suzuki Shinichi —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Team North sets out to defend its Junior PGT Elite Finals title against Team South in a week, and newly crowned men’s National Match Play champion Shinichi Suzuki and Lisa Sarines will lead a squad that will try to do the trick on enemy territory.

Suzuki is the most seasoned player from either side, and the 18-year-old is raring to meet the challenge head-on—home course disadvantage notwithstanding.

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“I really like our chances,” Suzuki told the Inquirer during a break in practice at Manila Southwoods, just three days removed from winning his first national title. “It will be a very exciting match this year, and our players are definitely just as strong as the other team.”

Team South was routed last year, 26.5-21.5, as the Northerners made the most out of their familiarity with The Country Club in Laguna. This time, Pueblo de Oro in Cagayan de Oro will be the venue, and Sarines is one of those who hasn’t seen the layout yet.

“Course familiarity will be a big factor, because I heard it is kind of a tough course if you don’t know it [well],” Sarines said in a separate interview. “I haven’t seen it yet, so I am excited to see how it looks and [figure out] how I am going to play it.”

Suzuki and Sarines are in the 15-18 boys’ and girls’ teams of the North, with both coming off successful national title quests as Lisa ruled the Strokeplay Championship two weeks ago with a 15-shot win over Tashanah Balangauan at Pradera Verde’s Pinatubo course.

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“The playing field will be pretty even,” the 14-year-old Sarines answered when pressed which team she feels is more talented. “But they (Southerners) do have the upper hand when it comes to course knowledge.”

Ralph Batican, who placed third behind Suzuki and Rolando Bregente at Luisita last week, headlines the South’s 15-18 boys’ squad, while Precious Zaragosa, who was second to Grace Quintanilla in the ladies Match Play, leads the South’s girls team.

“The South will definitely have an advantage because of course familiarity,” Suzuki went on. “They’re familiar with the environment and the course. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to whoever handles the pressure and plays their best game.”

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Tournament format calls for Four-ball play on the first day on Aug. 18, before the Foursomes the following day and the deciding Singles on Aug. 20.

Squads in the boys’ and girls’ 7-10 and 11-14 will also play all three rounds, and the South is looking to better a bum start last year that had them trailing by five points entering the Singles. INQ



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Andrew Flintoff’s Son Produces Batting Masterclass In Lancashire’s 443-Run Innings

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Rocky Flintoff, son of legendary England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, is following in his father’s footsteps. The 18-year-old has so far played five First-Class matches and 14 List A matches. Back in 2025, he scored a historic century for England Lions against a Cricket Australia XI, surpassing his father to become the youngest player to score a maiden century for the team. Flintoff, then aged 16 years and 291 days, surpassed his father’s maiden ton for the England Lions, which Andrew scored at the age of 20 years and 28 days.

On Tuesday, Rocky scored a 65-ball century for Lancashire against Somerset in the One-Day Cup. The young batter eventually reached 123 off 76 balls. His innings included seven sixes and 10 fours. His teammate Keaton Jennings scored 156 off 127 balls. Courtesy of the two centuries, Lancashire posted 443/6 in 50 overs. Lancashire won the match by 174 runs.

Last week, Andrew Flintoff said he had stepped down from his role as coach of the second-string England Lions following his appointment as head coach of the Sydney Thunder in Australia’s T20 Big Bash League. The former England captain had been in charge of the Lions for almost two years after returning to cricket in 2024 following a car crash while presenting the BBC motoring show Top Gear.

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“Unfortunately, I’ve made the decision to step away from my role with the Lions,” said the 48-year-old Flintoff.

“Not only have I enjoyed my time and the opportunity to work with the best young cricketers in the country, but I have also taken great pride in seeing them develop.

“I’d like to thank the coaches and staff for all their passion, tireless work and support they give every day. In particular, Ed Barney, who I’ve loved working with and was so lucky to have as a performance director, and obviously Rob (Key) for trusting me with one of the most important roles in English cricket.

“I can’t wait to get started with the Thunder later in the year and see where coaching takes me.”

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Flintoff was England Lions head coach for 23 months, but also spent time with England’s senior white-ball teams and was part of the backroom staff at the 2024 T20 World Cup.

Former all-rounder Flintoff, a key figure in England’s 2005 Ashes-winning triumph, also coached the Northern Superchargers franchise in English domestic cricket’s Hundred competition.

With AFP inputs


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Xbox CEO’s new TES VI post gets fans theorizing full title

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Xbox CEO Asha Sharma recently sat through a TES VI “live playthrough” session, finding its scale “incredible”. Her cryptic X post about it, however, has the community focusing on something else: the full title. With eight asterisks after “The Elder Scrolls VI”, the post may or may not be a hint at what the second bit will be called.

Crucially, if the asterisks are indeed a hint of how many letters there are, it doesn’t fit “Hammerfell”, the most widely theorized title.


As community theorizes TES VI subtitle, Asha Sharma’s post also establishes big dev milestone

Long-time Elder Scrolls followers are currently reading into the fine print of the asterisks to deduce what the title could be. Since Hammerfell is out, the going theory that I personally find the coolest is TES VI: Sentinel, which would sort of fit the naming pattern of TES II: Daggerfall as a synecdoche to High Rock.

Other ideas being thrown around include the two-word options: High Rock, Skyrim II, Iliac Bay itself, or even Redguard (encore).

Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI: ******** this morning. The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater.

Indeed, with the complete lack of any official information, these morsels are all we have to go by. The fact that it’s going to be south of Iliac Bay at all is speculation based on the only trailer all those years ago in E3 2018 (and some unverifiable leaks afterwards).

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Asha Sharma’s post today, too, is only another trail of breadcrumbs that may lead nowhere. For all we know, it’s just a random number of asterisks to classify the title. Or, perhaps, to reclaim some mystique lost with Bethesda’s sudden roadmap transparency.

The bigger redguard fish to fry in this tweet is the fact that a “live playthrough” of an internal build of TES VI was presented to the big boss. This is only the second-ever direct quote from an Xbox C-suite about watching some gameplay.

A few weeks ago, Xbox exec Matt Booty confirmed in a Variety interview that TES VI is “coming along well”, having seen the game in action up front. Today’s tweet is marginally more pointed, broaching the subject of scale.

Elder Scrolls has progressively become bigger from Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim. It’s most likely owing to the waning hardware constrictions with each era, but the enigmatic Elder Scrolls VI will doubtless be another step of this increment.

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Back to the more important topic, though: it’s a vertical slice in all likelihood, and the game is far from its final leg. It’s only been three years in production after all. Still, a direct X post from the Xbox CEO herself presents a big milestone.

If not indicative of its actual production stage, it’s at least a vote of confidence. With much restructuring and studio-cuts to narrow their portfolio, Xbox has recently put more money into accelerating the development of Fallout and Elder Scrolls projects.

One of Bethesda’s flagship titles, the game has more wind on its sails than past years, and we might even get to see a second (and a real) trailer this TGA. Meantime, all the wind we get is wild gusts of TES VI rumor floating on hopes and dreams.