A monthly event at the club in Colombo was given a breath of fresh air in the November medal. All the male golfers young and old contested each other in more ways than one. Although the weather gods were kind and provided plenty of cloud cover to keep away the sun, many were seen gathering around the mobile drinks cart to cool their hot bodies while taking in the sights of cool babes under bright yellow construction helmets.
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| Thangaraja in action at the Ridgeway |
Many thanks were given to the sponsors who displayed an array of heavy equipment of varied brands, for providing a welcome distraction of ‘Heavy Weights’ from the daily routine of hitting a small white ball and doing their utmost to hole it in the least number of strokes.
The winners in each category were:
National & Development Squad – N.Thangaraja-65
C Division – Dr.Hemal Fernando-66
B Division – Chandana Gunasekara-67
A Division – Arjun Fernando-71
The cocktail party and prize distribution was customized and no duty free was served. All who attended the evening function were treated once more to sinewy bodies, this time moving rhythmically to calypso beats interspersed by a screaming satanic figure, resembling a Halloween ‘ball’.Meanwhile, the tale of the Puffin has ended with the ladies preferring to keep their cool and head to the cooler climes of Nuwara Eliya to settle their differences on the golf course in the true spirit of healthy competition. The captain of the Royal Colombo Men’s team however, was in a tizzy with four of his team including his vice captain opting out, for various reasons, from participating in the main inter-club golf tourney to the prestigious Burdett Trophy.
For some reason this year, the odds seem to be stacked in favour of the beautiful Hill Country Golf club pulling off a much desired victory after many years on the losing side.
The big match will be played on Saturday when the RCGC battle NEGC in Nuwara Eliya and it is left to be seen whether the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club team can restore it’s lost image as a ‘Playing Club’ and bask in glory by winning back the Burdett Trophy.
While the modern game of golf originated in 15th century Scotland, the games ancient origins are unclear and much debated. Some historians trace the sport back to the Roman game of paganica in which participants used a bent stick to hit a stuffed leather ball. One theory asserts that paganica spread throughout Europe as the Romans conquered most of the continent, during the first century BC, and eventually evolved into the modern game. Others cite chuiwan ("chui" means striking and "wan" means small ball) as the progenitor, a Chinese game played between the eighth and 14th centuries. A Ming Dynasty scroll dating back to 1368 entitled "The Autumn Banquet" shows a member of the Chinese Imperial court swinging what appears to be a golf club at a small ball with the aim of sinking it into a hole.
The game is thought to have been introduced into Europe during the Middle Ages. Another early game that resembled modern golf was known as cambuca in England and chambot in France. This game was, in turn, exported to the Low Countries, Germany, and England (where it was called pall-mall, pronounced “pell mell”). Some observers, however, believe that golf descended from the Persian game, chaugán. In addition, kolven (a game involving a ball and curved bats) was played annually in Loenen, Netherlands, beginning in 1297, to commemorate the capture of the assassin of Floris V, a year earlier. This name is the closest sounding name to Golf being probably derived from Kolv or Kolf.
One definite fact is that the modern game originated in Scotland, where the first written record of golf is James II's banning of the game in 1457, as an unwelcome distraction to learning archery. To many golfers, the Old Course at St Andrews, a links course dating to before 1574, is considered to be a site of pilgrimage. Golf is documented as being played on Musselburgh Links, East Lothian, Scotland as early as 2 March 1672, which is certified as the oldest golf course in the world by Guinness World Records.
The oldest surviving rules of golf were compiled in March 1744 for the Company of Gentlemen Golfers, later renamed The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which was played at Leith, Scotland. The world's oldest golf tournament in existence, and golf's first major, is The Open Championship, which was first played on 17 October 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club, in Ayrshire, Scotland. |
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