Dhanika wins big as 2010 Junior National Golf Champion

Dhanika de Silva cruised to win the coveted Sri Lanka Junior National Championship last week at the Royal Colombo Golf Club.  Sponsored by Prima, the most prestigious tournament for young golfers in the country, saw some 60 youngsters participate at the Ridgeways course that recently won the award for the ‘Best Course in the Subcontinent’.

Playing in perfect conditions, the 17-year-old British School golfer stamped his superiority by winning the 2010 Championship with a huge margin of 16 strokes.  Having taken an early lead of 2 strokes on the first day with a 6 over par 77, Dhanika went on to improve the lead to a total of 5 strokes with a superb 2 over par 73 with five birdies.

Then on the last day the youngster left absolutely no room for doubt as he amassed a huge overall lead of 16 strokes having played another outstanding round of 2 over par 73.  The three day total of 223 was a 15 stroke improvement on his title win in 2008 and a 10 stroke improvement from the winning score of last year.

Sachin de Silva, also of The British School and winner of the title in 2009, played well to become the runner up and win the Silver Division with scores of 79, 78 and 82 for a total 239.

 Ishira Fernando was the winner in the Bronze division.

Having won the championship twice Dhanika hopes to follow the footsteps of past junior champions of the calibre of Mithun Perera, Binupa Wijesinghe, Lalith Kumar, Tissa Chandradasa and Amrit de Soysa who have all gone on to become top golfers.