From left: Donovan Ondaatje – Senior Business Manager, Ceylon Agro Industries Ltd., Prima Group Sri Lanka, Sajith Gunaratne – General Manager, Ceylon Agro Industries Ltd., Prima Group Sri Lanka, Ranil Pieris - President Sri Lanka Golf, Valentino Yap – Group General Manager, Prima Group Sri Lanka, Niloo Jayatilake - Chairperson Junior Development, Dr. Rohith Silva - Captain Royal Colombo Golf Club, S. Vaivaranathan - Vice President Sri Lanka Golf, and Chandana Weerasinghe - Junior development committee.

Prima Sunrise will sponsor the junior golf programme for the 15th consecutive year beginning with the Sri Lanka Junior Open Golf Championship 2023 to be held from 20 to 22 December at the Royal Colombo Golf Club (RCGC) course.

Underlining their commitment to developing young talent in golf, Prima will also support hosting the Regional Junior Opens next year to be held in Hambantota or Trincomalee.

The upcoming tournament is set to showcase not only emerging talent from Sri Lanka but also more than 10 entries from India as well making it an international event.

The Sri Lanka Junior Open is the established benchmark for the world amateur golf rankings (WAGR) for junior golfers. The winner of the Sri Lanka Junior Open will be crowned the National Junior Champion in both boys’ and girls’ categories.

“As the long standing partner in supporting junior golf in Sri Lanka, we are pleased to sponsor the Junior Open Golf tournament once again this year. As the most important tournament for young and upcoming golfers in the country, we look forward to some high standard golf this year as well. We are grateful to the Sri Lanka Golf for hosting the tournament once again, and continuing to enrich the sport of golf,” said Sajith Gunaratne, General Manager, Ceylon Agro Industries Ltd, Prima Group Sri Lanka, at a press conference.

“We believe that youth is our future and also sports build character. We don't only support golf but we have three sponsorships at the corporate level. That is junior cricket with Sri Lanka Cricket, with the Ministry of Education we support the National Schools Games athletics and golf is 15 years,” he said.

“Sri Lanka Golf is extremely grateful for the support and partnership we have had over these past 15 years with Prima. It is clearly a ‘Prima Sunrise’ event in our national golfing calendar, which is a much looked forward event by the junior golfers” said Ranil Pieris –President Sri Lanka Golf (SLG).

“The future of any sport is through the juniors. If you do not have young people coming up through the ranks of a high quality then you're not going to have a feeder for your national team. Now we have a great crop of young players coming through the ranks and I think it is through the untiring efforts of the various people before me who have actually done a lot of work to develop junior golf,” said Pieris who took over as SLG president in May.

“We are interested in actually having a lot more tournaments where young people can play and when they have an opportunity to play in good tournaments then they develop their talent and hopefully Sri Lanka will produce more and more good golfers. Having said that I would like to once again thank Prima Sunrise for their fabulous support,” he added.

Prima's support has played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of junior golf in Sri Lanka. Their continuous involvement has fostered an environment where young talents like Reshan Algama, Kaya Daluwatta, Adithya Weerasinghe, Jevahn Sathasivam, Kumar Dhanushan, Vinuda Weerasinghe, Rathis Kanth brothers and Sherin Balasuriya are a few who showed their class in the course to become a role model among the youngsters.

“The sponsorship has not only provided financial backing but has also contributed to the overall growth and professionalism of the sport. With the long-standing partnership with Prima Sunrise Bread we have been able to take competition to other parts of Sri Lanka in the format of creating Regional Junior Opens. This year we will make them three-day events to enable juniors to earn World Ranking points,” said Niloo Jayatilake, Chairperson Junior Development Committee of SLG.

“This humble journey we started in 2008 with about 60 kids playing in different age group categories. But today I'm happy to say that we have even 10 international entries. It's a positive journey like that we have seen in the development of golf,” she said.

“These tournaments are catalysts for the juniors to compete and show their strength in terms of their talent and become national winners. There will be stiff competition this year from internationals that is mainly coming from India. Our juniors also will have to perform at their peak to win this title,” she added.

Prima Sunrise Bread, the title sponsor of this tournament, will as always provide nutrition for the players during the event. The Prize giving is scheduled for 22nd December 3.00 PM.