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NDB Wealth CEO Prabodha Samarasekera (far left) and NDB Investment Banking Group Head Vajira Kulatilaka (far right), with the winners of last year’s tournament, Levon Niyarepola (second from left), Nirekh Tejwani (centre left), Taniya Minel Balasuriya (centre right) and Kvahn Tejwani (second from right).
For 2018, Sri Lanka’s most popular junior golf tournament, sponsored by expert financial planner NDB Wealth, will add a new segment to the tournament with the introduction of schools. Re-branded as the NDB Private Wealth Junior Masters Golf Championship, registrations for the tournament are currently open.
The tournament is scheduled for August 8 at the historic Royal Colombo Golf Course (RCGC). With the inclusion of the first-ever schools event, including pupils of any registered National, Private or International School in Sri Lanka, the alterations to the format of this tournament is as follows.
There will be a team event where schools can field a team of two players below 19 years of age. A school can field more than one team. Team pairings can be two girls and two boys, or one girl and 1 boy, where all will play 18 holes. Playing tee markers will be as per the senior or junior individual events specified below, and the winner of the schools team event will have the lowest team aggregate score.
The individual event is being narrowed down to senior and junior divisions, which are further broken down to boys and girls. This enables senior division [over 12 years and below 19 years] participants to compete for trophies, certificates and prizes, which are for the boys’ winner, boys’ first runner-up, boys’ second runner-up, girls’ winner, girls’ first runner-up, and girls’ second runner-up.
Junior division (under-12) golfers will fight it out for trophies, certificates and prizes for boys’ winner, boys’ first runner-up, boys’ second runner-up, girls’ winner, girls’ first runner-up, and girls’ second runner-up.
Last year’s tournament saw Taniya Minel Balasuriya winning the Gold category (aged 15 to 17 years), with Levon Niyarepola topping the Silver category (aged 12 to 14 years). Nirekh Tejwani and Kvahn Tejwani were the victors in the Bronze (aged 10 to 11 years) and the Copper (aged nine years and below) categories, respectively.
“With a revitalised mission that has added schools to the mix, we hope to propel the sport of junior golf to greater heights across Sri Lanka. Now in its fourth year, the re-branded NDB Private Wealth Junior Masters Golf Championship encourages planning, foresight, calculation and competition, which are vital skills seen in both exemplary financial planners, and the best golfers. We invite all youngsters to participate, and even get their schools involved, and see how they measure up against Sri Lanka’s best junior talent,” said NDB Wealth CEO Prabodha Samarasekera.