A flawless six-under 66 has given home-course amateur James Gill a one-shot lead after the third round of the New Zealand 72-hole stroke play championship at the Hamilton Golf Club yesterday.
The expected charge from the strong Australian contingent did not eventuate, and three New Zealanders top the
leaderboard.
Gill, who has had three sub-par rounds, is on 10-under 206, with Tauranga surprise package Kevin Smith on nine-under after three successive 69s.
Three shots behind Smith is Waikato's Jim Cusdin, who had his best round of 69 yesterday.
One shot from him in equal fourth on five-under is the leading Australian, Jamie Arnold, from Cronulla, Troy Ropiha (New Plymouth) and Blair Shaw (Hutt). Gill missed only one fairway and equalled the best round of the tournament thus far by Russley's Andrew Searle who carded 66 on the first day.
Gill said he had been striking the ball well all week but was dogged by bad luck in the first round, a 71, before charging back with 69 and 66.
He played the front nine in four-under 33 after holing long birdie putts at the first and third, two-putted the par-5 fourth for birdie and knocked in a short one for birdie at the seventh.
He was error-free on the homeward half with a short birdie putt leaving him five under after 10.
It was pars all the way in except at 17 when he drained a 6m downhill birdie putt and he got up and down at the last for par from a greenside trap.
Smith took time to find momentum after his group played some wayward shots early and had to call for rulings, but once the pace picked up so did his game.
He bogeyed the third and fourth but played his last 11 holes in five-under par with short birdie putts at eight and nine but his other three birdies were long-range putts, all about 10m, at 13, 14 and 16.
Arnold shared the lead with Gill at eight-under at the turn after a four-under 33 on the front nine, but he had three bogies and no birdies on the back nine for 71.
The shot of the day belonged to former New Zealand under-19 champion Peter Spearman-Burn (Miramar). At the par-3 175m 14th hole, his five-iron tee shot landed a metre below the pin and ran into the cup for his first hole-in-one.
After the final 18 holes today, the top 32 players will contest the national match-play championship over three days with the 36-hole final on Sunday.
- NZPA
