Victoria Club C'ship on June 23 and 24

S M Jiffrey Abdeen - Kandy Sports Correspondent

The annual Club Championship of the Victoria Golf and Country Resort sponsored by Noritake Limited will be worked off at the award winning Victoria Golf Course at Rajawella off Kandy on June 23 and 24 with the first too off at 7.30 am.

This championship is open to members of the club with separate championships of ladies and gentleman golfers. The main championship is the Gross event (for ladies and gentlemen) and in addition to this there will be also competitions for Longest Drive. Nearest to the Pin, Ladies and Gentlemen Nett and Division one and Division two Nett competitions based on their handicaps.

In the past lady golfers like Suwen Selvaratnam, Niloo Jayatillake, Manori Jayakody, Sonia Boyle, Pauline Morley, Maria Petre, Sumithra Dayananda Ukkwatta, Indira Tibblin, Linda Harris, Pran de Mel, Shirani Baffin Chatguri Engman and several other golfers have shown their prowess. Among the men who have excelled at this competition are Sidath Wettimuny, Nimal Wettimuny, Ian Tait, Sujeewa Lankatillake, Captain Damindra Fernando, Asakawa Yukiyawa, Sirath Kasthuriratne, Sanjeewa Wickremanayake, T Akberally, Amrith de Zoysa, Scott Wanigasekera, Harin Udeshi, Rolf Tibblin, Errol Johnston, Suren Wass, Yohan Taylor, and many others.

This will be one of the major championship of the Victoria Golf Club which is the pride of the country and has won many awards since it was opened for golfers in 1999. It has won the award for the Best Golf Course in the Sub-Continent on no less than five occasion in addition to finishing runner up on a number of occasions since this award was first presented in 2002. It is also ranked among the 100 most beautiful golf courses in the world and has attracted top golfers from the wold over.

Former world record holder of most number of test wickets and who legendary England cricketer and now turned cricket commentator Ian Botham plays golf at Victoria whenever he is in Sri Lanka. It one of those visits to Victoria he wrote this in the visitors book "Try to stop me playing at Victoria.

Another legendary lady golfer European Ladies Champion for many years and the holder of 10 world championships title Katrina Douglas during her visit to Victoria during its early days wrote in the visitors book "This will be one of ht e10 top golf courses in the world and it offers a challenge to even the most accomplished player." True to her words this is one of the most challenging golf courses.

The golf course and the facility available is upgraded from time to time with the first tuft of grass being planted by former Thomian cricketer and planter Tony Witham who was the first General Manager and the credit of constructing this golf course on a 558 acre coconut plantation should go to him and his successors Nike Varney and Errol Johnston with the help of the Course Managers Maheel Bulumulla and Indu Rodrigo and the support staff have maintained the high standards.

This golf course was the vision of Englishman late Mark Bostock to construct a golf course in Central Sri Lanka more particularly the hill capital to attract tourists and also make the game of golf popular in the region.

At that time Kandy did not have a golf course but it had a very large number of places of interest. Thus they could couple tourism with golf. This was a tremendous success.

This golf course was designed by that world famous golf arcitect Donald Steel and most part of it is on the banks of the Victoria reservoir and has been built upto USGA standards.

It is a 18 hole golf course designed for 36 holes. It offers an inspirational challenge and a great golfing experience whatever your handicap and within a most breathtaking setting.