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off the tee with Tita Nathenielsz

The 123rd Annual Championship of the Royal Colombo Golf Club took off to an excellent start with a few very highly competitive games and also a few massive massacres causing much misery.

Rusi Captain toyed with Nimal Hettiarachchy and then punished him viciously to a 7 & 6 defeat. Arjun Fernando had a titanic struggle to get the better of seasoned campaigner Doc. C. Thurairajah to go 1 up in victory. Fernando was impressively accurate from round the green at vital moments of the game. Thurairaja was as best as possible.

Anil trounced

Anil Hirdaramani was taught an absolute lesson and got caned to a huge defeat of 8 & 6 by that little fellow Amrith de Soysa who really sparkled. Dimunitive Alain Gyi playing excellent golf these days fooled around a trifle, experimented with shots and then kept Chutti Munsoor a tough opponent in his place with 5 & 4 victory.

Gyi beaten

In one semi-final Rusi Captain continued his excellent stroke play to convincingly beat Arjun Fernando 5 & 3 and in the other semi one saw absolute recklessness throw away a chance of victory. Amrith that sparkling young fell was 2 up at the 9th against dimunitive Alain Gyi. He then lost concentration and naughtily lost 2 holes to move to all square on the 18th making it necessary to extend play. The next four holes were nerve shattering with both pulling off brilliant recovery shots. The 5th hole which is a big dog leg was the 23rd in the extension. Off the tee De Soysa played a masterly intelligent shot to settle middle of the fairway and then the reckless Gyi raised hell with a massive slice off the tiger tee. Rising high the ball curled right and splashed the pond to give Amrith de Soysa a well deserved victory and an extra spread of smile of happiness.

Finals

The finals between Rusi Captain and Amrith de Soysa lacked the glamour of the Pin Fernando & Mike Robinson classics of yesteryear when after incessant continuous defeats Robinson was named Mr. Runner-up.

In the first half of the game which was 18 holes Amrith de Soysa scraped his way through to go-up and after a well chosen light lunch the kid came into his brilliant best despite flashes of absolute meaningless shots.

For example off the 8th tee he cracked a massive strayer to get behind the trees that stand tall by the 9th green. He lost that hole. He won the 9th with a par and took the 10th when Rusi encroached the rough out of bounds. He then goes 2 up to the 11th which he halved. Rusi goes berserk again and settled in timberland to give the hole to Amrith who goes 3 up. The 13th was halved and on the 14th Rusi struck a magnificent birdie to reduce Amrith's lead to 2. The 15th was Amrith's best with an absolutely gorgeous precise 3rd shot chip which he crowned with a great putt for a birdie to get into a 3 up lead again. The 16th was halved in pars and young Amrith de Soysa came the youngest golfer to win the Royal Colombo Golf Club Title. A brilliant stroke player, arrogant, bold and absolutely sure of himself De Soysa chalked up a win of historical importance. It's unbelievable but true that 3 years ago the kid was teething in Radha Sunderampillai's Clinic at the age of 13 and now 16 he becomes a champion. Nandasena Perera thinks he has tenacity and Anita Bisschop the Dutch Coach told me that he was a high class player with a tremendous future.

Lalin Samarawickrema handled the finals under an umbrella with skill. The Ladies Section was prominently represented by Anne Captain, Lilamani Weeraratne and Suwaneetha Selvaratnam who followed the finals with great enthusiasm but the bitter drop in my cup of happiness was to find the members of the Executive Committee give the game the skip for play in the forenoon, beer and snooze in the afternoon.

By this opportunity I would like to make reference to a brilliant performance by a kid before she reached her teens. Thuhashini Selvaratnam was only 12 in 1989 when she knocked Duchess Abhayaratne off the semi-finals in the Amateur Title event of Sri Lanka and in the finals she beat a most skilful player Anouk Chanmugam to take the title and get into the Guinness Book of records as the youngest to win a National Title. Since then she has gone from success to success bringing much credit to Sri Lanka. Just recently she was voted the player of the year for the State of Arizona and that is after five successful appearances in Amateur events in the United States.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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