Junior golfers tee off from Dec 16-18

Richard DWIGHT

The tee box, fairways and greens of the Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC) will swing into action next week, when the enthusiastic, up and coming youngsters pit their might against each other to vie for the Sri Lanka Junior golf title.

This annual golf championship is organized and conducted by the Sri Lanka Golf Union (SLGU) and sponsored by Prima Bread for the second consecutive year.

It starts on Wednesday December 16 and concludes on Friday December 18, with play being confined to the mornings of each day.

The tournament is open to both boys and girls under the age of 18 years and has assumed a measure of importance in that it serves as a platform for the SLGU to identify potential talent to play at the national level.

These observations were made by the President of the SLGU, Lalith Ramanayake, at a briefing held at the RCGC on Wednesday.

Present on the occasion was the General Manager Prima T.S. Shun who on handing over the sponsorship cheque said that his company was pleased to sponsor the event for the second successive year, and that it was honoured to be associated with a championship that had a history of a title over 30 years.

According to Nillo Jayatilleke, a member of the organizing committee, the expectations are that there will be around 50 juniors taking part in this tournament.

The competition will be based on the strokplay format and will be conducted according to the following age groups viz. 15-17 years (Gold Division) age group 11-14 years (Silver Division) and age group 10 years and under (Bronze Division). The overall winner will be determined by the best aggregate score registered at the end of three days and three rounds of golf, to be declared Sri Lanka’s Junior Golf Champion for the year 2009.

Some of them who did well to be former champions were Mithun Perera, Thuashini Selvaratam, Binupa Wijesinghe, Lalith Kumara, Tissa Chandradasa amongst yet others.

Those in contention for this year’s championship are defending champion Dhanika de Silva, Sachin de Silva, Vishal Jayasekera, Lochana Matthew and Nadine Jayaratne.