Sri Lanka Ladies Amateur Open Golf Championship will tee off at the Royal Colombo Golf Club
The 132nd Sri Lanka Amateur Golf Championship and Sri Lanka Ladies Amateur Open Golf Championship will tee off at the Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC) from September 5th to 10th September.4th September has been reserved for the practice round.
Over contingent of golfers will take part in the championship including foreign players. Indian and Pakistan players have confirmed their participation. Many lady golfers will participate in the Ladies Open Championship to be run concurrently.
Sri Lanka Amateur Golf Championship was initiated in 1891 and is the second oldest amateur golf championship in the world, after the British Amateur Golf Championship.
The first ever Amateur Golf Championship of Ceylon was played in Nuwara Eliya in March 1891 and J.W. Govan of the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club (NEGC) was the champion. The second championship was conducted by the Colombo Golf Club at Galle Face Green in October of the same year and was won by J.N. Campbell also from NEGC, who defeated J.W. Govan, to whom he lost in the inaugural championship. Thereafter Govan won the next two championships played in April and October 1892, played alternatively in Nuwara Eliya and Galle Face Green in Colombo.
The three De Saram brothers – Beauchamp, Fred, and E.R. became the first Ceylonese to play in the championship in 1912. The championship was interrupted by the First World War from 1915 to 1919. Then from 1920 to 1939 Ceylonese golfers made a greater impact in the championship, when Timothy De Silva won the title as the first Ceylonese in 1923. Bertie E. Weerasinghe won in 1929 becoming the second Ceylonese to win the Ceylon Amateur. The championship was disrupted again by the Second World War from 1940 to 1945 and was resumed in 1946 since then it has had an unbroken run. After the Second World War period from 1946 to 1963, the legendary Pin Fernando made his mark among the British majority amateur golfers by winning the championship on nine occasions, with C. Upali Senanayake the only other Ceylonese to win in 1963.
1964 was a new beginning for the championship, with most of the British golfers having left Ceylon, and official national teams from India and Pakistan competed in the event for the first time and have continued to do so, with additional teams from Bangladesh, and Thailand too participating annually.
Legendary Pin Fernando won the title on a record eleven occasions while K. Nandasena Perera burst on the scene in 1983 and captured the renamed Sri Lanka Amateur Golf Championship consecutively for three years in 1988, 89, and 90 and the All-India Amateur Golf Championship twice and of course the Silver Medal at the Beijing Asian Games in 1990. N. Thangaraja is the last Sri Lankan who has won the title since 2013.
“This year too the Championship is going to be a nail-biting tournament with top golfers vying for the Trophy. The Honourable Roshan Ranasinghe, Minister of Sports will grace the occasion as Chief Guest and will give away the major awards on the 10th of September 22 “, said Michael Perera Magala President of Sri Lanka Golf.
