The 53rd Royal-Thomian Golf for charity
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Nimal Piyaratne, the captain of Royal (L) and Tissa Wickramasinghe (R), the captain of S. Thomas’, exchanging the team cards, in the presence of Wijitha Perera, the Royal Vice Captain and Shiran de Soysa, the Custodian of the competition.
As recorded history has it the very first competition between the old boy’s golfers of the two schools was held in 1970. In line with this, The Fred de Saram Challenge Cup was donated to the Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC). This was in his memory and the cup to be awarded to the winning team of the two schools.
Thus, the 53rd competition between the old boys of the two schools is scheduled to take place today, Sunday. As tradition has it, this event will no doubt bring about much camaraderie and togetherness amongst the golfers of the two schools.
“We conduct this annual event a week prior to the Royal-Thomian cricket encounter, and it’s all about rekindling camaraderie and above all, contributing to the society. We compete in the true spirit of the Royal-Thomian Golfers’ Guild (RTGG) moto – ‘Together We Flourish’,” noted the captains of the two teams – Nimal Piyaratne of Royal and Tissa Wickramasinghe of S. Thomas’.
The annual golf event, played for the Fred De Saram Cup, was presented to RCGC in honour of Fred De Saram, who was one of the main initiators of the Royal-Thomian old boy’s golf competition in 1970. The first golf event of Ceylon was played at Nuwara Eliya in March 1891 and was won by J.W. Govan of the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club. The three De Saram brothers — Beauchamp, Fred and E.R. became the first Ceylonese to play in the championship in 1912. Since then, Fred De Saram had remained a well recognised stalwart of the Sri Lankan golfing fraternity. In 1933, he had the distinction of winning the Captain’s Cup which is a coveted trophy of the club, and was also a well-known legal luminary and a senior partner of D.L. and F. De Saram in the late 1920s.
The Organising Committee have already sat in deliberation giving due cognizance to the undeterred commitment made by the RTGG towards raising funds for projects for the needy segment of the society and that too on an All-Island basis.
“We are glad to announce that our old boys based in Australia, through the generous support of Morten Cricket Club in Brisbane, has raised nearly Rs.3.1 million towards the charity project. It may sound like we gather to play gold once a year and have fun, but the truth is the old boys of two schools are keen to contribute to the society through this wonderful sport,” explained Wijitha Perera, the Vice Captain of Royal.
Nearly 120 golfers from both schools will compete in pairs with the first tee off set to take place at 6.30a.m. at the RCGC. Royal will be captained by Nimal Piyarathne and the Thomians by Tissa Wickramasinghe. The charity project will have Jehaan Ismail as chairman and ably supported by Manoj Algama, Naveen Samarasekara and Suresh Subramaniam.