Golfers of tomorrow focussed upon
From left: Shiran Fernando (Vice Captain RCGC), Firaz Hameed (Captain NEGC), Niloo Jayatilake (Chairperson, Junior Sub Committee SLGU), Shun Tien Shing (General Manager, Ceylon Agro Industries, (Retd) Air Chief Marshal Harsha Abeywickrama (President SLGU), Sajith Gunaratne (Deputy General Manager, Ceylon Agro Industries) and Nishan Navaratne (Secretary, SLGU)
The Sri Lanka Junior Open Golf Championship sponsored by Prima Ceylon for the 11th consecutive year is scheduled to be Teed off between January 2 and 4, 2019 at the Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC). This was revealed at the press briefing held at the RCGC where the sponsorship cheque was handed over. This event will be an acid test for juniors who are also required to make it through gruelling Regional Junior Opens.
The Sri Lanka Junior Open is thus the established benchmark for national rankings in junior golf. The winner of the Sri Lanka Junior Open will be crowned the National Junior Champion in both boys and girls’ categories. The popularity of the sport is seen to be growing, mainly due to the focussed outreach programmes carried out by Sri Lanka Golf to propagate the sport at the grassroots. This initiative was the brainchild of the Junior Sub Committee of Sri Lanka Golf as a means to identify the nations young golf talent with a view to nurturing and developing them for future national and international representation.
The event will once again be conducted according to four age group categories in 15-18 years (Gold Division), 12-14 years (Silver Division), 10-11 years (Bronze Division) and nine years and under (Copper Division). The overall winner over the 18 hole events will be declared the Sri Lanka Junior National Golf Champion (Boys/Girls) for the year 2018.
Reigning Junior champion Vinod Weerasinghe expected to return to the island from the USA in time to defend the title. Vinod, the top ranked junior has already won this prestigious event twice before and with the ongoing professional coaching he is receiving overseas is heavily tipped to carry away the title this year as well.
A quartet of young golfing talent in juniors, S. Dhuwarshan, Aroon Aslam, Nirekh Tejwani and Yannik Kumara are expected to provide stiff opposition to Vinod this year, provided those talented youngsters remain steady temperament wise,and are able to hold their nerve under pressure.
In the girls category top junior golfers Taniya Balasuriya and Kayla Perera are once again expected to fight tooth and nail for the title. This duo, still in their teens have enormous potential to go the full distance. They evoke memories of past greats such as Thuhashini Selvaratnam and Tiru Fernando.
In the more junior categories, K. Danushan, Shanal Binuksha, Levon Niyarepola, Reshan Algama, Serin Balasuriya, Kavindha Samarasekera, M. Lidhurshan, M.S. Sanjey and C. Dharaniyan from Nuwara Eliya have been identified as emerging talent and this event should provide them a golden opportunity to showcase their talent and skills.