CAL O'Reilly missed the team side of golf during a seven-year stint as a touring professional on the Australasian and Japan Challenge tours.
After changing career paths to real estate and regaining amateur status, O'Reilly is back where he started, playing pennants for Toronto.
What's more, Toronto are in the box seat to win their first A-Grade division one title since 2011 - the last time O'Reilly played for his home club.
"I'm loving it," O'Reilly said. "As a professional, you don't play team golf. Especially this Toronto team, we have a couple of young guys who have come up, but Craig Avery, Josh Greenwood and Dave Alexander were playing when I was coming through.
"Once I got my amateur status back, the boys were hassling me to play. Initially, I said I would play a couple of games. We are three weeks in."
Toronto sit top of the pennants table after a thrilling win over defending champions Newcastle on Sunday.
The contest was locked at four matches each, forcing a sudden death play-off, where Toronto young gun Jake Riley prevailed against Tom De Wit on the third hole.
The two district heavyweights fought out a draw the previous week after a miscommunication meant the game wasn't decided by a play-off.
In the other clash on Sunday, Charlestown accounted for Merewether 7-1.
After three rounds, Toronto lead on 2.5 games, ahead of Charlestown (2), Newcastle (1.5) and Merewether and Belmont on 0.
"With Jake Riley and Jake Dundas coming back after playing pennants in Sydney, we have a bit of depth," O'Reilly said. "They are great young players. Jake Riley has a lot ahead of him. Some of the golf he is playing is pretty impressive for a 17 year old."
O'Reilly, playing as the No.2, went down 3 and 1 to Daniel Terry on Sunday. De Wit, Matt Saad and Chris Turnbull were the other winners for Newcastle.
Riley, Alexander, Avery and Justin Martin were victorious for Toronto, setting up a play-off.
Riley and De Wit, who was a touring professional 20 years ago, played the 18th, 1st and 2nd holes, where par was enough for victory.
"Jake is only young in his golf journey," O'Reilly said. "I don't know if he has been under that type of pressure before and he got the job done.
"I said to the boys as soon as Jake holed the putt, there are still five matches to play. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We have to perform each week."
O'Reilly left the professional ranks in 2020 and works in real estate with LJ Hooker Toronto.
"Most weeks, I play the pennant round and that is it," he said. "I have definitely realised it is hard to play without practice."
In round four on Sunday, Toronto travel to Belmont and Newcastle host Merewether.
** Charlestown professional Andrew Dodt made a solid return to the Asian Tour, finishing tied for 46th in the US$5 million Saudi International.
In his first major tournament since hurting his back in October, Dodt carded rounds of 68,68,70,71 to finish at three under, 16 shots behind runaway leader Abraham Ancer.
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