124th Sri Lanka Golf Nationals Oct. 18 to 22 in Nuwara Eliya:

Five countries - India, Pakistan, B'desh, Malaysia and Sri Lanka in battle

by S.M. Jiffrey ABDEEN- Kandy Sports Corr.

GOLF: The biggest golfing event in Sri Lanka and the Second oldest golf championship in the world - the 124th Sri Lanka Amateur Golf Championship organised by the Sri Lanka Golf Union with the support of Victoria and sponsored by E-wis and Audi Golf and Country Resort will be worked off at the beautiful Victoria Golf Course at Rajawella off Kandy from October 18 to 22, commencing at 7.30 am each day.

The secretary of the Sri Lanka Golf Union Ana Punchihewa told the Sunday Observer that five countries namely Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia will participate in this Golf Championship which is the second oldest in the world and has been held without any interruption over the years. The oldest golf championship in the world is the British Amateur Golf Championship in the home of golf.

This championship will be played separately for ladies and gentlemen golfers. Each team will have two golfers. The championship for men will be played over four records for four days and the winner will be decided on the golfer having the best aggregate.

Three-cornered tussle

For ladies, in addition to the main competition there will also be other competitors like stroke-play and Match-play which will be open events with the handicap being 0 to 36. The ladies championship will be between India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

A total of 60 golfers are expected to tee off in the various competitions, which in addition to the Main Championship there will be also competitions for Levers Cup and Dudley Senanayake Trophy.This is the third time that the Sri Lanka Amateur Golf Championship will be worked off at Victoria Golf Course, since it was opened for golfers in 1998.

The Victoria Golf Course is located about 20 kilometres from Kandy surrounded on most sides by the Victoria Reservoir. It was built on a 558-acre coconut plantation known as the Mahaberiatenna Estate. It stands on sylvan surroundings off the beaten track and has over the years upgraded its facilities to international standards.

Best golf course

No doubt it has won the award for the Best Golf course in the Sub-Continent on four occasions, bringing honour to the country, to golf and golf tourism.

This golf course designed by that world renowned golf architect and one time President of the United Kingdom Golfers Union Donald Steel is a 18-hole golf course but designed for 36 holes, keeping to highest environment standards.

A cool head and nerves of Steel are required to deal with the 473-yards par four-sixth. Victoria par 73 lay out has four excellent par 3 holes ranging from the very short but tricky 4th of 116 yards to the testing 210 yards 12th. One of the tees stands over 100 yards above the course which provides all the challenge and excitement for the golfers.

In addition to this it has a chain of chalets and a state of art Araliya restaurant overlooking the golf course.

In addition to this there is hiking horse riding, swimming, table tennis, pro-shop and also has a pier for the sea planes to dock, a four hundred metres from the club house.

The defending champion of Sri Lanka Amateur Golf Championship is Mithun Perera, but will not be eligible to participate this year as he had turned professional. Former Sri Lanka captain Kadasamy Probagaran from Nuwara-Eliya Golf Club too cannot play as he had turned professional.

Sri Lanka two teams

Thus Sri Lanka which will be fielding two teams will depend largely on golfers like Vijitha Bandara of Victoria Golf Club and N. Thangaraja of Royal Colombo Golf Club who have excelled at foreign competitions and at the local Pin Fernando Memorial Golf Championships.

It must be recalled N. Thangaraja who has a handicap of plus two came 36th at the recently concluded Asian Golf Championship held in Singapore. He beat all the golfers in the South Asian region, and some of the top players in Asia. It all points out to five days of top fare at Victoria from next Tuesday.