Best bet quinella

A few of the club’s most avid punters are gearing up for another big weekend on the punt at Rich River.

Some golf apparently will also be played.

Today if you had taken the good odds available for a Prez Priems/Bobby quinella in the October Monthly Medal you’d be laughing all the way back to the TAB to collect some good coin.

Storming home on the back nine with birdies on 11 and 14, an 84 off the stick for net 66 saw Rob three lengths clear of Bobby (69) with ‘Old Reliable’ Craig and Brendon dead-heating for third (70).

SoS and Nalin shared fourth (71) and Gordo and Peps snuck in a point for fifth (72).

Honourable mentions to Steve (74), ‘Mango Kenny’ who is back in town on the mangoes (good job Kenny!) and Raj (75). Stan, Andrew V, Josh, Beast, Wazza and Marc trailed them home.

Priemsy Trees

Lots of talk about helpful Priemsy trees today, including Raj right off the third tee heading into the Yarra, hits a tree and finishes up on left edge of fairway. His second shot then hit the big tree on the right and bounced left. His third shot hit the tree again but deflected neatly onto the green. That’s a triple Priemsy!

Wide lens

Raj suggested we needed a wide lens for the group photo, but Michael couldn’t cope with the hi-tech involved.

We had 17 players in the club comp, plus Marc’s guest Neil and Denzil putting in his third card for handicap (which will be somewhere between 28 and 30 depending on who wins a handicapping argument between Harry and Michael – has Michael ever won an argument with Harry?).

Raj also had a friend playing in his group on the front 9. So we had 20 blokes out there.

Welcome Denzil. Be warned if you “do a Charles” and win everything for a while with your new handicap, there will be some push-back from sometimes cranky old-timers. I won’t mention names (JQ).

Most exciting card

Your blog writer was very excited when he saw the sequence of scores on Gordo’s first three holes.

Birdie 3 on the first, perfect drive, then wedge to three feet and putt right in the middle. It goes without saying you would then expect a double bogey 6 on the second. But the best hole from a statistically satisfying sequencing point of view was Gordo’s 9 on the third. So that’s a start of 3, 6, 9. Unfortunately he managed better than 12 on the 4^th.

Shots of the day

Brendon (allegedly) to 1.97 metres on the 4^th to win the Pro-pin cash. Missed the birdie putt.

SoS laser like 4-iron to a couple of feet on the 7^th to win the NTP “ball” there. Made the birdie, one of eight across the field for the day.

SoS again near perfect 7-iron into the 18^th, on track for a hole-in-one all the way to the difficult top tier pin, but just as well he dropped his phone and didn’t press the button properly to enter the hole-in-one cash prize because it settled about 10 feet from the pin.

It wasn’t even good enough to win the NTP ball there as Neil had hit an even more perfect 7-iron a few inches closer earlier on.

Honourable mention to Marc’s pitch with his 60 degree wedge into the 13^th from under the trees between the 10^th and 13^th fairways. Perfectly executed, it stopped a couple of rolls short of going in.

Raj also happy with his first ever birdie on the 8^th.

Beast showed he can still do Beast things with a huge drive and second into the 6^th and only narrowly missing the eagle from the fringe.

Best narration with shot of the day

The Priems brothers are known to wax lyrical with some narration about what they are going to do with a shot before they hit it.

A few weeks back keen blog readers will remember Stan had some commentary of his own about CJ’s lengthy pre-shot story-telling on the 14^th green, along the lines of “just shut up willya and hit the bloody thing.”

This week Rob had a big, long left-to-right curler to the back pin on the 14^th and he let it be known that the correct line was to hit it directly over the rubber cup of the previous hole location. No need to move my ball he said, I’ll just hit it straight over the rubber cup and in she’ll go. And that is exactly what happened, sort of. It didn’t go straight over the rubber cup, it hit the side of the cup which sharply changed the ball’s direction and then in she went!

Rob also made a huge putt on the first, which a bit like CJ’s eagle 8-iron on the 9^th a few weeks back, and a few fish caught over the years, got longer and longer with each re-telling. Somewhere between 25-50 feet it was.

Champion of Champions Field

Congratulations on a great win Rob. It adds you to the field of 14 qualified for the 2025 Champion of Champions to be played on our Christmas Break-Up/Trophy Presentation Day on 20 December. See the full field on the website under ‘Competitions’.

For the rest of us who haven’t qualified there are a few more chances, the November and December Monthly Medals and the last major of the year, the Fred Kitson Spring Cup on 18 and 25 October.

Annual Mustard Jacket Challenge

And then of course if a club member not already qualified for the Champion of Champions wins the Mustard Jacket “Annual Challenge” this weekend at Rich River, they too will make it into the Champion of Champions field.

Have fun up there boys.

Results for Saturday, 04 Oct 2025
1st Robert Priems (66) 2nd Bob McDonald (69) 3rd Craig Cameron (70) 3rd Brendon Mitchell (70) 4th Nalin Samaranayake (71) 4th Stephen O’Sullivan (71) 5th Gordon Hill (72) 5th Andrew Petricola (72)

Seniors Results: 1st Robert Priems (66) 2nd Bob McDonald (69) 3rd Craig Cameron (70)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 4th Brendon Mitchell BallPin No 1 – 7th Stephen O’Sullivan BallPin No 2 – 18th Neil Brocket