Special Golf Tour No 300 G

Introduction

Sri Lanka is relatively unknown in the field of Golf, but surprisingly the country has four of the finest 18 hole courses in Asia. In fact the association with golf is more than a century and the Sri Lanka Amateur Golf Championship, which was instituted in the year 1891 follows the British Amateur as the oldest national championship in the world. The four courses are situated in Colombo, Digana and Nuwara Eliya, Colombo at sea level, Digana at 600 m and Nuwara Eliya at an elevation of 2'070 m have distinctly different terrain and climate conditions. This contributes to the enjoyment and challenge as you could be playing golf in three different countries.

Although the golf tour is planned primarily for golfing, a city tour of Colombo and a visit to Kandy and its sights is included in the programme. Kandy in particular is one of Sri Lanka's many highlights and should not be missed.

The Courses

The Royal Colombo Golf Club: This course is 5'770 m long (par 71). A flat course with broad fairways which looks simple to beginners but there are many water hazards and well guarded bunkers which quickly change the opinion. The Royal Colombo Golf Club is easily accessible, in 20 minutes drive from all first-class hotels in the city. http://royalcolombogolf.lk

Water Edge Golf Club: This is the newest golf course in Sri Lanka, situated 10 km from the centre of  Colombo in Bataramulla. It is a 18 hole par 72 layout, measuring 5’850 m, with 5 par 3’s, 5 par 5’s and 8 par 4’s . It is a challenging test. - One needs to be very accurate, as water hazards are in play on all 18 holes. With the absence of trees the flat course is quite windy and plays links style, with very lush fairways , which makes the ball sit up extremely well..  

Victoria Golf Club, Digana: This course is 6'190 m long (par 73) a championship golf course designed by Donald Steel and inaugurated early in 1999. The fairways are rather narrow in a hilly country side. Stately trees and avenues of coconuts lend the course an immediate air maturity. Impressive natural outcrops of rocks are a distinctive feature and indeed a hazard of the course. The Victoria Golf Club is situated 25 km east of Kandy and 150 km from Colombo.

The Nuwara Eliya Golf Club: This course which is reputed to be one of Asia's finest is 5'520 m (par 71). The fairways are long and narrow and bordered by fir trees and thick bushes. It demands skilful "position play" and the hilly terrain makes it essential that players can cope with up-hill and down-hill lies. The Golf Club is 10 minutes walk from the Grand Hotel and 190 km from Colombo.

Golf is played on all courses throughout the year.

Tour Programme

Day 1 Colombo

Stay in Colombo at the Hotel Galle Face, Colombo. Afternoon city tour. Colombo is the commercial capital of Sri Lanka with a population of 1,1 million.  The Fort, in the very centre of the city, is where most of the colonial remnants mainly from the British era are to be found. Nearby Pettah is Colombo's busiest and most traditional bazaar, mosaic of human activities and architectural memories. Cinnamon Gardens is the most prestigious residential area. Overnight at your hotel.

Day 2 Colombo

Transfer to The Royal Colombo Golf Club or Water Edge Golf Club for a morning and/or afternoon session of golf. - You can have your lunch at the golf clubs. After the game transfer back to your hotel.

Day 3 Colombo - Kandy

After an early breakfast you leave Colombo and the coast and drive along a busy highway into the interior of the island, past paddy fields, palm-groves and coconut plantations. In Pinnewela you visit the elephant orphanage, where about seventy elephants are well looked after, mostly young animals that have been found through-out the country sick and abandoned by their herd and brought to Pinnewela. If you are lucky, you can watch the feeding or the daily bath in the river of the jumbos. After this visit the road begins to ascend gradually. You stop for a short visit at a rubber factory, where you will learn in detail, how the milky sap called latex is treated to become raw rubber. After this stop you will enjoys a beautiful panoramic view of the central highland with its hills and mountains. At noon you reach, the old royal city of Kandy, situated at 500 m, beautifully nestled between green hills. At its very centre lies a small artificial lake and the palace of the last Singhalese king which has become a temple and the holiest shrine in Sri Lanka, where the tooth relic of Lord Buddha is highly venerated. You will pay a visit to this temple in the later afternoon. Check-in at the Hotel Suisse.

After lunch you will visit the world famous Botanical Garden Peradeniya. The park dates back to 1371 under the reign of king Vikrama Bahu III when he held court here. The English put the cornerstone of the present garden in 1821. During the Second World War the garden served as the headquarters of Earl Mountbatten, the supreme commander of the allied forces in Southeast Asia who became later the last Viceroy of India. You will find in the garden a very large variety of orchids, spice trees, palms, bushes, as well as tropical plants and flowers of all type. In the evening you will pay a visit to the temple of the holy tooth. After the temple visit you have the opportunity to attend
a dance performance, where you will see the famous Kandyan dances, as well as up- country and devil dances. Overnight at your hotel.

Day 4 Kandy - Victoria Golf Club, Digana - Kandy

After breakfast your driver will bring you the to Victoria Golf Club, Digana, situated about 25 km east of Kandy for one or two rounds of golf. Return to Kandy after your golfing.

Day 5 Kandy – Nuwara Eliya

After breakfast you leave to Nuwara Eliya. From Peradenya the road starts to ascend steadily and in the late morning, shortly before reaching Nuwara Eliya, you will have climbed 1'500 m. You are now in the tea country; where ever you look, you will see tea plantations, the rich full green of thousands and thousands of tea bushes. And out of the green in regular intervals the white coloured tea factories will enchant your eyes. Occasionally you can see a few rice fields and near the villages, vegetable plantations or gardens.

The small resort town of Nuwara Eliya, situated at 2'070 m above sea level, lies on a little lake and is surrounded by mountains covered over and over by tea bushes. At the town boundaries there are a lot of vegetable plantations and flower fields, but also along the roads of Nuwara Eliya and in
most of its gardens flowers are blooming. Check-in at the Grand Hotel, Nuwara Eliya. During the British rule, the Grand Hotel was the summer palace of the English governor.

In the afternoon transfer to the Nuwara Golf Club for a round of golf. Transfer back to the Grand Hotel for overnight.

Day 6 Nuwara Eliya

Transfers to the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club for Golf and after the game back again to the hotel.

Day 7 Nuwara Eliya - Colombo

After breakfast in the hotel you leave Nuwara Eliya and a short while later you will reach the Ramboda pass at 2'200 m, the highest elevation of your tour. From the descending road you see again the rich full green of the tea estates with the white-coloured tea factories. You will stop at one of these tea factories where you will learn how the green tea leaves become the well known Ceylon teas. While descending into the lowlands, you will come across the paddy fields and vegetable plots, which border the settlements. Later you will see again paddy fields and coconut plantations. You will stop at one of the spice gardens there you can see a lot of trees, bushes and plants cropping spices. You will reach Colombo in the evening. Check-in at the Hotel Galle Face..

Day 8 Colombo

After breakfast transfer to The Royal Colombo Golf Club or the Water Edge Golf Club  for golf and after the game back to the hotel again. Overnight at the hotel.

Day 9 Colombo

Breakfast at the hotel and end of the tour.

The prices include accommodation on bed and breakfast in Colombo at the Hotel Galle Face, in Kandy at the Hotel Suisse in deluxe room and in Nuwara Eliya at the Grand Hotel, Golf Wing, transport in air-conditioned car with English speaking driver/guide from Colombo and again back to Colombo, inclusive of entrance fees for the excursions and visits mentioned in the programme. Green fees and caddie fees etc. are not included.
 

Prices valid until 31st Octoberl, 2009

Price for two persons in double room USD 1'230.00

Price for one person in a single room USD 1'130.00

Price for three persons in a triple room USD 1'430.00

Green fees in Colombo, Digana and Nuwara Eliya per person per day

On a working day USD 20.00 Colombo and USD 40.00 in Digana & Nuwara Eliya

On weekends and  holidays USD 30.00 Colombo and USD 60.00 in Digana & Nuwara Eliya

Caddie fees per round per day USD 6.00 and USD 10.00 in Digina & USD 7.00 in Nuwara E.

Supplements: During the Kandy Perahera from 6th August until 16th August, 2008 at  the Hotel Suisse  USD 50.00 per room per night   On the 24th December and 31st December inclusive of gala dinner as per hotel.