The Sri Lanka Junior Open Golf Championship 2019 will take place from January 6 to 8 at the Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC) sponsored for the 12th consecutive year by Prima Sunrice Bread.
The event, one of the most prestigious in the junior golf calendar, will once again be categorised into four age groups: 15-18 years (Gold Division), 12-14 years (Silver Division), 10-11 years (Bronze Division) and nine years and under (Copper Division).
The committed sponsorship of junior golf by Prima has been invaluable to the Sri Lanka Golf Union in promoting the sport islandwide and this year witnessed increased participation of youngsters from the Kandy, Anuradhapura and Nuwara Eliya regions. The popularity of the sport is growing rapidly thanks mainly due to the focused development programs being carried out by Sri Lanka Golf Union to propagate the sport at the grass-root level islandwide. This initiative was the brainchild of the Junior Sub Committee of Sri Lanka Golf as a means to identify the nation’s young golf talent with a view to nurturing and developing them for future national and international representation.
Reigning junior boys champion Vinod Weerasinghe will be unable to defend his title as he is currently training in the USA. Vinod, the top-ranked junior has won this prestigious event thrice. His absence will throw this year’s tournament wide open to the younger talent such as S. Dhuwarshan (Nuwara Eliya), Aroon Aslam (Kandy), Nirekh Tegwani and Yannik Kumara of Colombo International School.
Last year’s junior girl’s winner Taniya Minel Balasuriya, however, will once again be defending her title but will face stiff opposition from the rising star, 16-year-old Kayla Perera of Ladies College. It should be a toss-up on the day between these two for the girl’s title will largely depend on which of these talented youngsters steady their temperament and are able to hold their nerve under pressure.
The Algama brothers Reshan and Keshav, Thejas Rathis Kanth, C. Dharaniyan from Nuwara Eliya and K. Danushan and Shanal Binuksha from Colombo have been identified as exciting emerging talents, and this event should provide them with the ideal opportunity to showcase their skills in the divisional junior categories.
The three rounds of the championship will be used as preliminary rounds for selecting one boy and one girl for the British Junior Open to be held in July 2020.
The prize-giving ceremony is scheduled to be held on January 8 at 4 pm while the title sponsor of the tournament Prima Sunrice will provide nutrition for the players during the event.
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