Golf
It is almost 125 years since the Royal Colombo Golf Club was inaugurated. The stone was laid and a course was built on the Galle Face esplanade. The Royal Colombo is the second oldest Royal Golf Club outside the British Isles, with the Royal Calcutta Golf Club established 175 years ago identified as the oldest. During this period of time every imaginable game was played on Galle Face and the playing area was so impossibly crowded, that golf was getting choked due to unlawful encroachment.

In 1895, the Colonial Secretary, a rabid golfer himself, moved in and brought immense relief to all golfers when, in consultation with Governor Sir Joseph West Ridgeway, he offered the Alfred Model Farm – named after the son of Queen Victoria – to the Golf Club. In December 1896, the course was opened by Governor Ridgeway and since then the Royal Colombo Golf Club course has been named Ridgeways, and today, after much restructuring, the course is an absolute beauty comparable to the best in the region.

The Victoria Golf Club at Digana can also match any course in the region, and when the Pelwatte Course is ready, Sri Lana will have four courses to accommodate the present increasing demand for world-class facilities.

The Nuwara Eliya Golf Club has been redeveloped with tremendous changes to the fairways and greens. The landscaping is splendid, and the accommodation and restaurant have been jazzed up, assuring golfers of a pleasant and friendly service.

But the showpiece remains the Royal Colombo Golf Club, which has been re-designed by architects of world repute, Donald Steel and Martin Ebert. The course is absolutely beautiful and the Club House is studded with comfortable and roomy foyers, a spacious Coffee Shop and much privacy in a fine dining room named Ridgeways.

Nuwara Eliya
At 1889m Nuwara Eliya (pronounced nurel-iya, meaning ‘City of Light’) was the favorite hill station of the British, who kitted it up like a misplaced British village. The old pink-brick post office, the English-country-house-like Hill Club with its hunting pictures, mounted fish and hunting trophies, and the 18-hole golf course (said to be one of the finest in Asia) all cry out ‘England’. Nuwara Eliya has a fair assortment of other country-style houses with large gardens – many now turned over to vegetables to make this one of Sri Lanka’s main market gardening centres. There’s a well-kept central park that comes alive with flowers around March to May and August to September.