In early 1996, a meeting was convened at the Long Bar of the Royal Selangor Club, which was attended by Mike, Christie, Joe Fernandez, John Kuruvilla, and Dinesh Nambiar. After the usual preliminaries, Mike and Christie announced their idea of a golf tournament. If there were some doubts at first, they quickly disappeared as the evening wore. YAM Tunku Tan Sri Imran was invited to be our Patron, which was the easiest decision. Naming the tournament took a little longer and they finally settled on that most recognised Malayalee dish, the “Aviyal”.
Two trophies would be contested, the Gross Champion for the Tan Sri B.C. Sekhar Trophy, and the Nett Champion for the P.R. Viswanathan Trophy. These eminent Malayalees were approached to donate these trophies because they played golf and while the former was an acclaimed scientist of world renown, the latter was the first Malayalee to have owned a golf course in Malaysia.
The inaugural tournament, with Datuk Mike Krishnan as Chairman, was held at Staffield Country Resort in 1997. There were about 60 participants; golf and dinner were a ‘Men Only’ events. The dinner was a great success and although there were some concerns about the welfare of our diners in getting back to KL, it was clear that this was a tournament to stay as it had the support of many members of our community. The inaugural Gross Champion was Joe Fernandez (of the Anchor Beer fame) who beat Jack Johnson by a stroke. Jack was to exact his revenge by becoming Gross Champion the following year.
The event continued to be staged at Staffield in 1998 with Datuk Mike Krishnan as Chairman. Invitations to Ladies and non-golfers were extended and we had 80 golfers and over 120 diners. We even provided a bus to transport diners to Staffield. There was entertainment, including cultural shows and speeches by eminent personalities. Aviyal was firmly established in the Malayalee community’s social calendar.
Christie Robert was anointed as our Chairman for the years 1999 and 2000 and the tournament moved on to Glenmarie Golf Resort as the numbers in attendance at dinner grew and we needed to consider larger ballrooms for dinner.
Dinesh Nambiar followed Christie in the Chair in 2001 and 2002 and golfing numbers were now over 100 and diners over 200. Then followed John Kuruvilla, Gerald Miranda, Neville Fernandez, Freddie Fernandez, Harold Robert, Rakesh Aravind, Sathian Menon, HS Dharan, Girish Ramachandran, Ramesh Menon, Kevin Sugumaran, and now Saji Raghavan. Apart from Staffield and Glenmarie which have been our most popular venues, Aviyal Golf was also held at Kota Permai, Templer Park, KLGCC, Tropicana, KGNS, KGSAAS, IOI Palm Garden Resort, and The Mines Resort.
With the growing support and popularity of the event, more trophies were introduced over the year, with the Mike Krishnan Trophy for Champion Senior Golfer, the Ken Fernandez Trophy for the Champion Lady Golfer, and the Dinesh Nambiar Trophy for the Champion Junior Golfer.
The Aviyal Golf celebrated its 28th Anniversary this year with more than 110 golfers and 320 diners, and we are already planning the next edition in 2026, with the help of our golfers, diners, donors, advertisers, sponsors, supporters, volunteers, and party-people, who have made AVIYAL GOLF the longest consecutive, and perhaps the only, Malayalee golf tournament and dinner in Malaysia.
As the story continues News Hub Asia will continue to keep track of this important event as it has truly established itself as one of the leading social intersections in the community and for those golfers who want to play a challenging round or enjoy the challenges of the 19th hole.
The 29th Aviyal Golf is fixed for Friday, 10th July 2026.