Golf: Australians fighting out NZ amateur strokeplay

PALMERSTON NORTH - The only one standing between Michael Sim and the New Zealand amateur strokeplay championship title today appeared to be fellow Australian golfer Adam Porker after yesterday's third round.

The Victorian carded a solid four-under 68 at the Manawatu Golf Club to close to within two strokes of Sim after the overnight leader carded one-under to finish 15-under on 201.

Six shots further back in third equal after a one-over 73 yesterday was Bay of Plenty's Brad Iles, who was tied New South Wales' Mitchell Brown.

Despite a third round which left him challenging for the title, Porker was far from comfortable with his game.

"I haven't been feeling too good over the ball recently," he said.

"And the result is I haven't been playing that well... in the Aussie amateurs (last month), I missed the top-100.

"But I've just been thinking about the way I should be playing -- and I had a pretty good start (yesterday) and made a few clutch four-footers (putts)."

Porker didn't think the afternoon wind made the course difficult to play, despite a number of high-scoring third rounds.

He and playing partner Brown found the most difficult aspect of the course its quickening greens, which made putting from above the hole fraught with danger.

Brown had the misfortune of a four-putt early in his round, before making up for it with a long, sloping eagle putt on the 14th.

A couple of minutes later on the par-five 15th, however, his tee shot was lost into trees to right of the fairway and he did well to scramble a bogey.

Brown's up and down round of two-over was still enough to keep him tied for third with Iles, who would have held third on his own if not for a bogey on the last.

Best of the other New Zealanders after three rounds were Auckland's Trav is O'Connell and Rotorua's Jae An, who were tied for fifth with two other Australians, Kurt Carlson and Justin Maker.

Equalling the best round of 66 yesterday was Todd Sinclair, an unheralded 18-year-old from the Hedgehope nine-hole club near Mataura in Southland.

It was his best ever competition round and included seven birdies and eagle on the par-five 15th.

Also equalling his best competition score with a 66 yesterday was Taranaki's Troy Ropiha, a beaten quarterfinalist in last year's national amateur match-play championships.

Sinclair and Ropiha's scores saw them climb up the leaderboard into ninth equal and 11th equal respectively.

Wanganui's New Zealand amateur representative Riki Kauika had a disastrous round registering an eight-over 80 to drop him into a tie for 47th.

In contrast, Manawatu's Ewan Westergaard carded a solid one- under to move up several places into 14th.

Other previous contenders to struggle included Russley's Andrew Searle (78), Matamata's Richard Wright (79) and Paraparaumu Beach's Ryan Leslie (78).

They were among a large group of players vying for a place in the top-32 today, who automatically qualify for the match-play championships starting tomorrow.

- NZPA