Malaysia’s Navaratnam and China’s Chun Ling clinch SriLankan Airlines Golf Classic

By David Ebert

The winners of the 13th edition of the SriLankan Airlines Golf Classic, which kicked off from 17 to 19 October at Colombo’s prestigious 130-year-old Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC) after a long four-year break, were announced at a gala awards ceremony held yesterday at the RCGC Club House.

Balachandran Navaratnam of Malaysia won the Men’s title, with a Nett stableford score of 44 points and total of 92 points. Navaratnam was in the lead on the first day of play on Thursday, maintaining his advantage to finish off in the lead on the final day. He was also the winner of the Gross stableford score with 50 points.

In the Ladies category, Chinese national Tuo Chun Ling sailed through to pocket the women’s title to finish at 48 points and a total of 88 points overall in the Nett stableford score.

The event brought together over 130 international golfers flown in from Europe, the Middle East, India and the Far East to participate in three scintillating days of play with a host of prominent local golfing personalities participating as well.

Winners were decided through the points allocated over two rounds in both the Gents and Ladies’ Gross and Nett Stableford Scores, the Junior Division; Nearest to the pin, Longest Drive, Hole in One and the Overall Winner of the Tournament.

With Sri Lanka currently making strides towards positioning itself to become the most preferred destination in South Asia, events such as this possess enormous tourism promotion potential in the targeted tourist markets across the region.

As a country with a rich cultural and natural heritage as well as four world class courses in Colombo, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and the latest in Trincomalee as well, Sri Lanka not only offers the traveller a choice of destination but a varied choice of climate as well and this is seen by many as one of the most unique aspects that gives the country a competitive edge over the rest of the region.

SriLankan Airlines Chairman Nishantha Wickramasinghe told the Daily FT that many countries in the Far East and South Asia have identified the potential in sports tourism with golf in particular as a means to attract high-end tourists and have made vast investments to develop the required supporting facilities.

“Although Sri Lanka is still in its infancy as a golfing destination, events such as the SriLankan Golf Classic will help market and position the country in the international golf community,” he added.

Speaking further on SriLankan Airlines’ continued efforts towards the promotion of the country within the sports tourism segment and the commercial benefits that it brings to the country, SriLankan Airlines Senior Manager Corporate Communications Ranjit De Silva said: “We are playing a dual role here; the first being that as the National Carrier of the country, we have a commitment, a duty and an obligation to be involved in the national development of the country in terms of tourism, so the whole objective of the exercise is to develop this whole new segment classified as sports tourism, and within this category golf in particular is considered to be the most up-market of the sports, thereby the profile of a golfer is that of a high-spending tourist. So, it is to develop Sri Lanka, which is already known as a sports tourism destination in certain areas, as an exotic golfing destination. The other aspect of it is that as an airline, we need to maintain our corporate brand and image and by using sports events of this nature, gain the required standing and basis for us to stand as a truly international airline.”

Commenting on playing Sri Lankan courses and the competitive advantage that the country possesses in this category, prominent golfer, business personality and participant in the SriLankan Airlines Golf Classic Sidath Wettimuny told the Daily FT: “I always consider Sri Lanka to be a small place that has the ability to offer you a variety of sights and experiences which normally you would find in a much bigger country. We are a little island that offers a lot of variety, the beaches, the wildlife, the hill country and even the dry zones as well, so I think this is a fabulous place for both holidaying and playing golf because we’ve got four beautiful courses now and they aren’t as easy as one would expect. There are a lot of traps which makes them more competitive than most of the courses in the region and the feedback from most foreign golfers who have played here is positive and we can expect them to return, so there is enormous potential. We need to promote our destinations more and now that we have peace, it can only get better and better.”

– Pix by Daminda Harsha Perera