Zen and Jackie clinch NEGC golf titles
Zen Dharmaratne and Jackie Dias clinched the Nuwara Eliya Golf Championship titles which concluded at the Nuwara Eliya golf course over the
Zen Dharmaratne the men’s champion in action.
weekend. Twenty-two-year old Zen put in a stunning performance to overcome defending champion Amrith de Soysa while Jackie overcame Danushi Senadeera.
It was Zen’s first ever participation while his opponent Amrith who was the favourite was winner of the NEGC title for the last two years. With heavy showers being experienced in the past few days the organizers were lucky as the weather gods was kind to them with the three day tournament being completed without any interruption.
The annual NEGC tournament sponsored by Etisalat was well contested by over 50 golfers with the duo in the men and 13 golfers in the women’s category. Zen who came into the tournament having earlier won a major golf tournament at the RCGC went into the lead on day one.
But Amrith undeterred, came back to take the lead on the second day before Zen took the lead back and maintained it to the finish to clinch the title by a close margin of two strokes with the score of 219 to Amrith’s 221.
Jackie Dias the ladies champion in action.
Champion Zen had scores of 73, 75 and 71 to be 9 over par while Amrith ended with 11 over par making scores of 77, 70 and 74. Zen speaking to the media after his victory said that the course was a bit tough and was tricky with narrow fairways, bunkers and wet patches, but it made the competition a bit more interesting. Meanwhile Jackie Dias who won the national ladies championship at the RCGC a few weeks back was in top form and was too good for her opponent. Jackie used her experience to the hilt.
Even though she clinched the title by four strokes she never gave her opponent to make any headway. Jackie ended with scores of 84, 81 and 86 to finish on 251 while Danushi finished with scores of 90, 82 and 83 to end on 255.
The sponsors Etisalat has come forward to support the game of golf in a big way as they are the proud sponsors of all the four golf playing clubs in the island namely NEGC, RCGC, Victoria Golf Club and Eagles Golf Club which is a first ever by any corporate.
Results:
Men’s tournament: NEGC Championship (Gross) – Zen Dharmaratne (219) beat Amrith de Zoysa (221); Division A (Net) – Sachin d e Silva (225) beat Sujeewa Karunatatileke (228); Division B (Net) – Janaka Gallangoda (212) beat Primal Wijayanayake (217); Division C – Anil Amarasuriya (220) beat Tommy Wijayasekera (268); Seniors – Prasanna Goonetileke (221) beat Herman Gunaratne (335).
Ladies tournament: NEGC Championship (Gross) – Jackie Dias (251) beat Danushi Senadeera (255); Division A (Net) – Anusha Senadeera (226) beat S. Selvaratnam (229); Division B (Net) N. Amarasuriya (234) beat S. Desinghe (241).
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