Day 2 of the Sri Lanka Junior Match Play Golf Championship 2015 sponsored by Perera and Sons, saw the copper division consisting of 20 kids under 10 years teeing off with much excitement to qualify for a place in the knockout phase semi final berth.
The Sri Lanka Golf Union decided to create this new division in order to initiate their long term plan to develop the next generation of golf champions. Boys and girls were out together and had to play off the same tee marker for 9 holes.
Yanik Kumara topped the batch with a well complied gross score of 42 with Tien Kapilasena hot on his heals on 43 and closely followed by K.Dhanushan on 44. The 4th Place for the semi final position also saw a close finish between Nirekh Tejwani (51) Qasim Moosajee (52) and Shanal Binushka (54), with Nirekh just managing to scrape through for a chance to his display match play skills. The keenness shown by the youngsters, including Kaiyan John Pillai at 5 years of age, must bode well for the future of Sri Lanka’s Golf.
In the Gold, Silver and Bronze divisions the quarter finalists battled it out in the midday heat neither asking nor giving any quarter. However,there were no upsets in the Open /Gold division for the Rukmini Kodagoda trophy, with all four top seeds eventually coming through as expected. Ishira Fernando beating Hiruna Sigera 5/4 and defending champion Prashan Peiris sending D. Dhanaranjan home at the 16th 3/2 while Armand Flamer Caldera torched his opponent S.Kailas 4/3 but the current junior open champion Lamindu Rainaka had a slight scare against Akash Thangadore winning only at the final hole 1 up.
The Silver division had one upset when Dilshan Malinda outshone a young and upcoming jewel Iman Sangani by 5/4 while top seed Taniya Minel showed her class with a huge victory over Shaveetha Kohombange 9/7 and Sathsara Dilshan also romping home early defeating Avisha Gunawardena 6/5, Kehan Allis who arrived just-in-time from Malaysia too made his mark defeating Dimuthu Fernando 3/2 to set up an interesting semi final with the favorite Taniya.
The bronze division had some excitement with the match of the day between Mahisha Hirushan and Levon Niyarepola drawing the crowds all the way to a sudden death playoff. Levon showed that he was a chip-off-the-old-block, having a past RCGC club champion Dad biting his nails and following all the way to see him snatch victory at the 19th .
Top Seed Kayla Perera earned a rest day and will meet Vikash Thangadore who beat Amrik Perera 5/4 and Tarin Wijeyasinghe who cleaned up Damin Kotagama 6/5 will be matched up against Levon in an exciting day of play on Wednesday.
