Thangaraja takes men's championship title

S.M. Jiffrey ABDEEN, Kandy Sports Corr.

Sri Lanka's N. Thangaraja from the Royal Colombo Golf Club beat the Indian National Champion S. Chikkaranappa by three strokes to lift the championship title at the 124th Sri Lanka Amateur Golf Championship organised by the Sri Lanka Golf Union and supported by the Victoria Golf and Country Resort and sponsored by E. Wis and Audi and conducted at the Victoria Golf course at Rajawella off Kandy yesterday.

This was Thangaraja's first major golf title after he took to golf barely five years ago. He exelled at the recently concluded Asian Golf Championship by finishing 36th, but all the golfers from the South asian Region - a promise which had blossomed out yesterday.

When play began yesterday morning in the fourth round Sajib Ali of Bangladesh was leading with 217 and Thangaraja and Chikkaranappa were one stroke behind with 218 each.

But yesterday Thangaraja came up with an excellent 71 with two under par. Chikkaranappa gave him a good fight, when they came to the last hole Thangaraja was in the lead by two. But Chikkaranappa floundered in the last hole and lost out by three strokes. In this four round championship Thangaraja scored 73 twice and 72 in the third round and lifted the title with 71 to total 289 which was three under. Chikkaranappa made 79 + 72 + 67 + 74 to finish with a total of 292.

In third place was another Sri Lanka N. Ranga with 294 which he tied with the Bangladesh Champion Sajib Ali who also totalled 294.

In fifth position was Vijitha Bandara of Victoria Golf and Country Resort with 295.

The 124th Sri Lanka Ladies Open Amateur Championship was won by Gurubani Singh of India who beat Isza Fariza Ismail of Malaysia 3-2.

The Chief Minister of the Central Province Sarath Ekanayake was the chief guest and he distributed the award with Tony Withana, Dionne Jayasuriya, Errol Johnston and Martin Ebert.