The Murray River Golf Challenge

Welcome to the home of The Murray River Golf Challenge!

This sparkling event pays tribute to the wonderful golf courses given life by this continents’ mightiest tributary. An ambrose affair with very close links to the famous Surf Coast Cup, the event has suffered the occasional identity crises with ambrose teams of both two and three members surfacing as victorious. There is no doubt this event is widely recognised as one of the toughest tests of golfing courage, strength and erudition any riverboat tyre-kicking, Huckleberry golfer might find across any of three glorious south-eastern Australian States.

What was once an annual event has found a rather more peaceful existence as a bi-annual affair, in keeping with the leisurely pace one experiences when dipping a toe in the sweet waters of life lived along a golfing river. This event has taken on some of the great courses and resorts the river has to offer; from the serene beginnings among the beautiful box gums of Corowa (and Wahgunyah), to the hurly-burly of Cobram-Barooga, this event has made a meal of many a twin town. In 2001 and 2002 respectively the challenge was thrown down to the resorts of the trend-setting Rich River (Echuca-Moama) and the famed Yarrawonga & Border Golf Club (Yarrawonga-Mulwala) near the shores of the shimmering Lake Mulwala.

At this time, The Murray River Challenge had arrived. Indeed, there was a touch of the Everest syndrome and a hangover that few excluding Tensing Norgay could truly understand. Having scaled the lofty peaks of Rich River and the 45 challenging holes at Yarrawonga, there seemed little left to prove for the MRGC. A desperate fling back in Barooga in 2004 did nothing more than produce a surprise victory from a couple of Surf Coast Cup journey-men. It seems the Challenge may have produced its own pair of Mark Edmonson’s as a harbinger of dark days ahead for this once glorious championship.

However, hope springs eternal and soon this great pilgrimage may be restored to its former glory with a peregrination of prodigal proportions back to that great Australian golfing playground, the banks of the mighty Murray. As a traditional winter event, keep an eye on this page for any news on the scheduling of a date and venue for the next running of this great championship.
 
Murray River Golf Challenge Champions

1999 – G. Oakley, C. Kakoufas (Corowa, NSW)
2000 – P. Ashby, C. Robinson, C. Kakoufas (Barooga, NSW)
2001 – C. Kakoufas, A. Conacher, R. Conacher (Moama, NSW)
2002 – D. Robertson, G. Oakley (Yarrawonga, NSW)
2004 – J. "Birdman" Barnard, S. Shand (Barooga, NSW)