After opening gate of golf course at 5:00 a.m., participants begun to gather at golf course. They took breakfast at clubhouse, some participants practiced at driving range. After this, all players got together on practice green in front of clubhouse, and there we had opening ceremony.
In opening speech, president Toutake expressed appreciation words on joining to this event, and he introduced that Gen.Angelella had been aide for commander of 5AF when JAAGA had been established in 1996. President Toutake gave Gen. Angelella words of welcome to SPORTEX, and also congratulated about his inauguration as 5AF/CV.
Gen.Angelella said with mixing Japanese language, "Are you ready to enjoy golf? I'm very pleased to play golf with you as representative of USAF. Weather condition is much better than last year, please let enjoy!" Gen.Hokazono said " Thank you very much for inviting us to SPORTEX. We all are going to enjoy golf with forgetting busy business in our office. Let's have good result!" And then competition started.
26 parties of Japan-US mixture moved to each starting tee ground while it was cloudy and little bit cold. At 7:00 O'clock, they had tee-off at each starting ground. Though bad weather caused bad score, weather recovery brought us good score. All parties finished playing by noon, and came back to clubhouse. There they checked results and took lunch with joy.
Commendation ceremony was opened at clubhouse after lunch. At this ceremony, Mr.Sogabe was awarded as 1st prize winner (JASDF), Mr.Ron Riehn (USAF) as 2nd prize, Mr.Sam Derilo (USAF) as 3rd prize, and many participants were given special prize. Awards were presented by JASDF Air Chief, 5AF/CV and JAAGA president. Shout of joy broke out at each prize conferment.
At closing ceremony, Gen.Hokazono and Brig.Gen. Angelella expressed appreciation words to JAAGA as follow. "Thank you very much for providing us such a wonderful opportunity. We could have very good time to confirm our good friendship. We are waiting on next SPORTEX". Finally president Toutake expressed appreciation words to Tama Hills' staffs, 3 USAF and 5 JAAGA volunteers who had positively supported on this events. We think that SPORTEX'08B was successful and all participants could confirm friendship each others. (reported by secretariat Harada)
