A REJUVENATED Lloyd Jefferson ”LJ” Go will begin his 2025 campaign when the Philippine Open tees off on Jan. 23, in the Manila Southwoods Golf & Country Club in Carmona, Cavite. Known as Asia’s oldest national open, the tournament is making a return after a five-year hiatus.
The Cebuano pro golfer enters the event as one of the players to watch, being the second-highest ranked Filipino in the field based on the Official World Gold Rankings, where he is behind two-time Philippine Open champion Miguel Tabuena.
Go scouted the fabled Jack Nicklaus-designed Southwoods Masters Course last week and offered his assessment: “There are a lot of scoring opportunities, and as long as I take advantage of those holes, then I can put up a good score. The rough is growing nicely, so finding fairways will be a premium in order to attack the pins.”
Go shot up the world rankings throughout the 2024 season where he competed primarily in the Abema Tour and China Golf Tour, which are second-tier developmental tours for the bigger Japan Golf Tour and DP World Tour, respectively.
But prior to competing abroad, Go achieved his first win as a professional in the Philippine Golf Tour’s Davao leg in March in the Ranchos Palos Verdes Championship. That maiden win gave him the needed confidence boost for his travels to Japan and China that followed.
Even though Go started his Japan season with a missed cut, he immediately righted the ship with his second professional victory in his season debut on the China Golf Tour’s Hainan Baoting Open. The win gave him a slot in the big leagues, particularly the DP World Tour’s Volvo China Open. He capitalized on that opportunity by finishing tied for sixth and earning him the biggest single paycheck of his career to date.
This was in the midst of a one-month stretch of otherworldly form spanning April to May where Go shot 11 straight competitive rounds in the 60’s across four different tours, while collecting a win, a second and that sixth-place finish. His world ranking was shooting up week after week.
A midseason slump took the sails out of Go’s momentum. Needing to finish in the top 20 in Japan’s Abema Tour Order of Merit to be promoted to the Japan Golf Tour, Go flamed out -- missing the cut in three of his last four events and finishing 22nd in
the rankings.
With his chances in Japan gone, Go needed to focus on the remaining events of the China Golf Tour where he stood second – a spot he needed to protect to earn full playing status in the DP World Tour’s Challenge Tour. But finishing strong was a daunting task coming off the heels of midseason struggles with fatigue creeping in.
“Towards the end of the season, I was already feeling tired but I needed to keep pushing since my season wasn’t over yet,” said Go as he recounted his final events in China, where he proved his clutch mettle in his last six events with solid finishes of second, 16th, fourth, sixth, third and fourth – clinching his number two ranking and earning the coveted Challenge Tour card for 2025.
For the whole 2024, Go was competing primarily on two tours – China and Japan – both a long way away from home. He could also not afford to skip events since he was in contention for promotions in both tours.
“I finished the year playing 12 events in a row, flying from one country to another,” Go lamented as he returned home to Cebu in mid-December. “That’s when I realized my fatigue throughout the year finally caught up with me. I was sick and couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks.”
All that effort must have been worth it for Go, as his official earnings for the year were over US$200,000 across eight different tours. Now ranked a career-best 577 in the Official World Golf Rankings and still rising, Go will turn 30 in two weeks -- an age considered to be the prime for most golfers.
When the Philippine Open starts, it will have been over one month since Go played his last competitive round -- marking his longest layoff from competition in over a year. “My break was mostly used for recovery, but I have two weeks to ramp up my practice to get ready for the season.”
Applying lessons he learned from his grueling 2024 campaign, Go plans to play fewer events across other tours while locking-in on the European Challenge Tour. He also elaborated on the area of his game that will be his work-in-progress: “I’ll be trying to gain speed to increase my distance throughout the year, as it’s the aspect I need to improve to achieve even
better results.”
“My primary goal is to get a DP World Tour card for the 2026 season,” said Go, explaining that a year-end top-20 ranking in the European Challenge Tour will promote him to the bigger, more lucrative DP World Tour, where he can compete against big names like Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Adam Scott. His journey to achieving that goal begins next week in the Philippine Open.
