Donald Steel Golf C'ship on February 11

S M Jiffrey Abdeen-Kandy Sports Correspondent

The fourteenth Edition of the prestigious Donald Steel Golf Championship organized by the Victoria Golf and Country Resort will be worked off at the beautiful Victoria Golf Course at Rajawella off Kandy on February 11 (Saturday), commencing at 7.30 a.m.

It must be recalled that the Donald Steel Golf Championship was the first golf tournament to be held at Victoria Golf course after the golf course was opened for golfers in 1999 and since then this has been the venue for many top grade competitions like the SAARC Games golf championship, Sri Lanka Open Amateur Golf Championship, Mackwoods Ladies Stroke Play Championship, Rotary International Golf Championship, Sri Lanka Golf Festival, Sri Lanka Golf Classics, Sri Lanka Cargo Golf Championships, Mark Bostock Golf Championship, All Nationals Scramble, Oman Air Golf Championships and many others apart from the Monthly Medal Golf Championships.

It was that world famous golf architect and one time President of the United Kingdom Professional Golfers Union Donald Steel who designed this golf course along with Martin Ebert who still comes over to upgrade the existing facilities in keeping with the present day requirements. Thus fittingly the first championship which was held here was named after that great golfing personality Donald Steel who if time permits comes all the way from 'Old Blighty' to add colour to this event.

Since this first championship held in 1999, this golf course has from a scratch rose to very high levels never attained by any golf course in Sri Lanka. It has been ranked among the 100 most beautiful golf courses in the world and visiting cricketers and other leading personalities in the world, when on their tour of Sri Lanka have made it a point to include a visit to Victoria Golf Course in their itinerary. It has been also won the award for the Best Golf course in the Sub-continent on four occasions since this competition was inaugurated in 2002 by the Asian Golf Digest.

Apart from the main competition for the Donald Steel Trophy awarded to the Best gross Score, there will be also the Ebert's Pet awarded for the Best Net Score for gentlemen golfers.

For Ladies there will be two main competitions worked alongside and the prestigious on will be the Pam Fernando Trophy for the Best Gross Score. This trophy has been named after the greatest lady golfer this country has seen and she passed away recently.

The other competition will be the Victoria Bown awarded for the Best Net score. In addition to this there will be separate competitions for ladies and gentlemen such as the nearest to the pin and the Longest Drive.

Entries are now open and those interested could contact Marketing Executive Dhanushika Madagoda on mobile No. 0727840894 or 0777840894 Pro Shop 0812376376 or log into www.golfsrilanka.lk for further details.