More junior golfers from faraway places like Trincomalee, Anuradapura and Kandy will be the new entrants that will vie for honours at the 12th Annual Junior Golf Championship that will be played from January 6 to 8 at the RCGC golf course.
The championship will be conducted under four age groups the under-15 to 18, 12 to 14, 10 and 11 and under-9 years. The 15-18 age group will play for the gold, 12-14 for silver 10-11 for bronze and under-9 for copper medals.
The age categories of 15-18 and 12-14 will play over 18 holes while 10-11 and under-9 age groups play over 14 and 9 holes respectively. Over 150 junior golfers have confirmed their participation which is an achievement for the organizer of the championship Junior Sub Committee headed by Niloo Jayathilake.
Prima Sunrise Bread has come forward to sponsor this championship for the twelfth consecutive year. These details were disclosed at a media briefing held on Monday at the RCGC.
This youth championship was inaugurated 12 years ago with the aim of promoting golf at grass root level and take it to the outstations too. This program by Sri Lanka Golf has achieved its objective with more golfers from Trincomalee and Anuradhapura also coming in. Earlier it was only schools from Colombo, Nuwara Eliya and Kandy that participated.
“We are grateful to Ceylon Agro Industries for supporting our program to promote the sport from grass root level to bring our young golfers to reach greater heights to compete at international level,” said Jayathilake.
Proof of this program was evident when the Sri Lanka girls won gold medals for the first time from the South Asian Games held recently in Nepal.
General Manager of Ceylon Agro Industries Tien Shing Shing said that golf is a world renowned sport and the time has come for Sri Lanka to produce golfers to face the international challenges.
In the absence of last year’s boys champion Vinod Weerasinghe the championship is wide open. Youngsters S. Dhuwarshan (Nuwara Eliya), Aroon Aslam (Kandy) Nirekh Tejwani and Yanik Kumara (Colombo) battle for this year’s Championship.
In the girls section last year’s winner Tania Balasuriya will try her best to retain the title but will face stiff competition from Kayla Perera of Ladies College.