Sri Lanka Junior Golf C’ship from Dec. 7-9
The tournament teed off officially with the handing over of the sponsorship cheque - Pic by Amila Gamage
All arrangements have been made to conduct the Sri Lanka Junior Golf Championship for the ninth consecutive year at the Royal Colombo Golf Club from December 7 to 9.
Vinod Weerasinghe and Armand Flamer Caldera are the top contenders for the Junior National Champion and a close contest between them will decide the Junior National Champion.
Taniya Balasuriya, Yannik Kumar and Nirekh Tejwani are the other prominent players of the three-day championships at the Royal Colombo Golf course.
Last year’s winner Januka Dilshan has now graduated out of the junior category and the he will be playing in the Senior National Championships and in the other international tournaments in the future.
Speaking at the media briefing Sri Lanka Golf Union President Priath Fernando stated that Sri Lanka Golf has developed ambitious plans to produce world class golfers as it has been done for cricket.
“Sri Lankans have a natural hand-eye coordination which makes it easy to take up the game at a very young age. The Junior Golf Development Committee therefore decided to last year create a new younger age category for the junior events adding nine years and under as a Copper Division,” Fernando said.
“ Although Sri Lankan golfers in the past were winning internationally, the speed at which other South Asian Nations were moving in the golfing arena, left us far behind in all aspects of the game. However, the current and future environment is conducive to once again surpass our neighbours,” Fernando said.
The SLGU have divided the players under different age categories. Ages 10 to 11 has been identified as Bronze division, a separate age category which took into account the fact that kids physically mature rapidly from 12 years upwards. Twelve to 14 years has been identified as the Silver Division and Junior Gold division started from age 15 years up to 17 years.
Sponsors — Prima Sunrise has been associated with the main Sri Lanka Junior Open for nearly a decade making them technically still in the Copper Division. However, moving on to the next level with Sri Lanka Golf from next year will see a quantum leap in the quality of juniors coupled with a doubling of the quantity by starting a more extensive program for schools in the outstations where there are more golfing facilities already established and more to come under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s direction.
“I am happy to be leading a dedicated team involved with Junior Golf Development,” said Priath Fernando.
“ As we have planned to bring in more strategic partners who are willing like Prima to help promote the game keeping sight of the long term benefits, Sri Lanka Golf can focus on more modern and effective training programs which are needed to build both mental as well as physical endurance to sustain consistency at the highest levels,” Fernando said.