In their gesture to foster the growth of golf among the youth, Prima Sunrise Bread has come forward to sponsor the Sri Lanka Junior Open Golf and the Regional Junior Open Golf tournaments for the 14th year.
The Junior Open golf tournament will be held from December 20 to 22 at the Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC) course to decide the champion junior golfer.
Sri Lanka Golf (SLG) firmly believes that golf is the only sport apart from track and field sports that has the potential to produce medal winners at Asian level. Therefore they had embarked on a youth golf development program to unearth and foster the youth in the game.
The best examples of medal winners are Nandasena Perera and Anura Rohana who won the silver medals at two separate Asian Games.
The winners in the Junior Open will enable them to enter the world amateur golf rankings (WAGR) for junior golfers. The winner will also be crowned the National Junior Champion in both boys’ and girls’ categories. The tournament will be conducted in four categories. The Gold is for those between the ages of 15 to 18, Silver is for those between 13 and 15 years, Bronze for those between 10 and 13 and the Copper for those 9 years and under.
The tournament has grown over the years and approximately 80 to 100 children will compete for these junior awards. Defending boys champion Yannik Kumara is also expected to compete. However, stiff competition is expected from Nirekh Tegwani, Vinuda Weerasinghe, K. Danushan, Sankanath Hesara and Sherin Balasuriya who are playing competitive golf currently. In the more junior divisions Reshan Algama, Jacob Norton, Thejas Rathis Kanth, Yehan Kenthula and Thenuk Sathinidu are expected to shine.
“As the long standing partner in supporting junior golf in Sri Lanka, we are proud to sponsor the Junior Open Golf tournament once again this year. As the most important tournament for junior and upcoming golfers in the country, we look forward to some high standard golf this year as well. We are grateful to Sri Lanka Golf for hosting the tournament once again and continuing to enrich the sport of golf,” said Lawrence Chan, Group General Manager of Prima Group Sri Lanka.
“The popularity of the sport is growing rapidly in the country due to the development programs being carried out by Sri Lanka Golf. This initiative was launched to identify the nation’s young golf talent with a view to nurturing and developing them for future national and international representation. This year an increase in participation of youngsters from the Kandy, Anuradhapura and Nuwara Eliya regions will be witnessed.
“It is thanks to sponsors like Prima supporting this initiative of Sri Lanka Golf that talented juniors are now coming through the system,” said Niloo Jayatilake, Chairperson of the Junior Subcommittee of the SLG.
She also said that those who finish below 16 will form a pool of boys and girls to prepare them for future international tournaments.