Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC) joined hands with World renowned architect Moshe Safdie’s Sri Lankan marvel, Altair to breath life into once esteemed RCGC Open Golf Championship which was stranded for 22 long years. The tournament will be worked off from July 24 to 28 at RCGC. This was revealed to the medis during press briefing at the RCGC recently.
Addressing the gathering RCGC president Lal Dias said, “the RCGC Open Golf tournament which is played as an Open Golf Championship where all golfers in the country can participate was inaugurated in 1970 and was open to all golfers, both professionals as well as amateurs. It was a true test of golf with 4 rounds of stroke play to determine the champion golfer of the year”.
The RCGC’s resident professional H.L Premadasa won the championship the first three years, after which Sri Lanka’s best golfer ever, Nandasena Perera won it a record 7 times. Club amateurs Pheroze Billimoria and Rusi Captain won it twice and once respectively. Other winners included Jessie Perera, while in 1995 which was the last time it was played, Tissa Chandradasa took home the trophy.
Club captain, Ranil Pathirana went on to say that due to unavoidable circumstances the RCGC Open was discontinued and this year, has been resurrected by the Clubs GM, Nalin Jayatilleke, with Altair having come forward as principal sponsor of this prestigious tournament.
“There will be over 100 of the best men’s golfers in the country vying for the top spots. There will be a cut off after the first two days, after which the best 30 golfers will advance to the final two days. We have over 60 entries and this has attracted most of the professional golfers in Sri Lanka and is the only open tournament that is played other than the Sri Lanka Open. Top favourites of this year’s tournament are Sri Lanka’s veteran golfer and Asian Games silver medalist Nandasena Perera’s son Mithun Perera as well as Anura Rohana, Prabagharan, and N. Thangaraja”, said Nalin Jaytilleke, GM, RCGC.
Director Indocean Developers, Pradeep Moraes and Jay Dias, Head of Sales and Marketing, Altair were also present at the media briefing.
Moraes said that Altair was particularly pleased to support this tournament as in keeping with its
title ‘open’ to all strata of competitors based solely on competency and membership or club affiliation was not a restrictive factor. “Providing the opportunity for a broad field of Sri Lankan
talent to showcase their skills after a period of 22 years is certainly a pleasing prospect. As Altair always stands for uniqueness and change, we are all out to bring that good change to Lankan golf in future”.
The winner will be awarded a trophy and a chash prize of Rs 100,000 while cash awards will be given to top 30 golfers.
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