Sri Lanka Open 2023 from May 28 at the Ridgeways
The Sri Lanka Open 2023, the country’s topmost professional golf tournament, will be held between May 28 and June 2 at the picturesque Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC) course in Colombo. The feature professional golf tournament organised by Sri Lanka Golf (SLG) is the Sri Lanka Open first played in 1972, providing an opportunity to non-member golfers with talent to vie for the Open Golf Champion title, which was won by H.L. Premadasa, a caddy beating top amateur golfers in 1972. This fete was recognised by the RCGC Committee by appointing H.L. Premadasa as Assistant Golf Professional, who however, died in a motor accident prematurely few years later.Following Premadasa were a host of caddies from RCGC and the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club (NEGC) namely K.M. Wemboo, A.A. Sumathipala, P. Sigamany. However, the outstanding performer has been K. Nandasena Perera, the seven-time winner of the Sri Lanka Open and R.A. Anura Rohana, who also tied with Nandasena on seven wins. N. Thangaraja is a past winner ranked 21st in the PGTI, whilst K. Prabagaran from Nuwara Eliya won the last playing of the Open in 2017, for the third time.
Mithun Perera, the illustrious son of Nandasena, is yet to win the Sri Lanka Open, though he is ranked 35th in the PGTI 2022 Tour. Mithun, Thangaraja, Anura Rohana (ranked 55th in PGTI), Prabagaran and Vijitha Bandara are regular players in the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) and the Sri Lanka Open is expected to offer substantial prize money attracting top professional golfers from the PGTI as well as from about 10 countries in the South East Asian Region and the Middle East.
Golfers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Qatar, Oman, Dubai and the UAE are expected to participate. The Sri Lanka Open 2023 is tipped to offer a substantial prize purse in keeping with Pro Tournaments in the region, with a view to raising the bar in Sri Lanka combining golf spectator tourism as a unique holiday location to be held at the highest level annually or biannually.
A top-level Pro-Am event is scheduled on May 28, followed by a practice and qualifying round on the May 29 and the 4 round Stroke play Open championship to follow from May 30 to June 2 at the RCGC course. Many attractive side events have been planned alongside the main event, promoting the fun aspect of golf to children towards the development of golf in Sri Lanka.