VGCR celebrates 14 years nurturing SL golf:

Donald Steel Trophy Golf tomorrow

S.M. Jiffrey Abdeen - Kandy Sports Correspondent at Victoria

Etisalat will sponsor the first major golf championship for 2013 at the Victoria Golf Course which will be the Donald Steel Trophy Golf Championship 2013 organized by the Victoria Golf and Country Resort which will worked off at the award winning Victoria Golf Course at Rajawella off Kandy tomorrow with the first tee off at 7.30 a.m.

This was disclosed by the Marketing Manager of Victoria Golf and Country Resort Ms Dhanushika Medagoda, at a briefing of the media.

She said that this will be the 15th version of this championship and was the first to be held when the Victoria golf course was opened to the golf course in 1999. The Donald Steel Trophy will be awarded to the gentleman golfer having the best stable ford score. The Net winner receive the Ebert’s Pot and for the Ladies the Pam Fernando Trophy is awarded to the Lady golfer having the best gross over the single round. The Net ladies event is the Victoria Bowl.

The name behind the tournament is Donald Steel and he presented this trophy Victoria Golf and Country Resort then known as Victoria Golf Club in 1999 and inaugurated the first Donald Steel Trophy Golf Championships in 1999. Donald Steel is one of the best golf course architects produced by the British Isles in the same lines as Dr. Alaistar Mackenzie and Harry Colt whose designing of the golf courses are legendary.

Donald Steel is regarded as a major influence on golf course design just like Mackenzie and Colt as his ability to blend a course to the landscape enhances rather than ruin the landscape on which the golf course sits upon. Victoria Golf Course is a perfect example of this skill.

Something about that great golf architect Donald Steel. As a young man, he was the only writer and architect to play in the open Championship as an amateur. He continues his influence and guidance of the game in the United Kingdom and beyond.

He was President of the British Association of Golf Course Architects from 1986 to 1989 and President of British Association of Golf Course Architects from 1993 to 1998 and President of the English Golf Union in 2006. He was also the first ever Golf writer for the Daily Telegraph in London from 1961 until 1990 and has written over ten books on golf. It was this great personality Donald Steel who designed the Victoria Golf Course and Victoria is very proud of it. In his own words he has described golf course as thus. “Some golf courses have a splendid undulating terrain over which the holes are routed. Some have a scenic back drop of hills and lakes which excite the senses.

The Victoria Golf Course is blessed with both.”

The current holder of the Donald Steel Trophy is former national cricketer Sidath Wettimuni whose previous win was in 2008. Also in the high list of potential winners is his brother Nimal Wettimuni, Ian Tait, Lankatillake, Martin Ebert and young Binupa Wijesinghe who has returned from the States and participated in the Pin Fernando Championship this week.

The Pam Fernando Trophy is named after Sri Lanka’s greatest ever lady golfer and is an open contest amongst the best Sri Lanka could muster.

Versatile Suwen Selvaratnam is the current holder of the Pam Fernando Trophy having won it five times before including the inaugural one in 2000.

The Victoria Bowl – a magnificent piece of Waterford Crystal will be offered to the winner of the Ladies Net event.