New Zealand’s Brad Shilton moved to the top of the leaderboard at the South Pacific Golf Open Championship after the third round.
Shooting a 6-under 65, Shilton recorded the best score of the round giving himself a three shot lead heading into the final day.
“I started off well I had 5-under on the front, I had few 50/50’s that went my way which definitely helped, I made a couple of birdies from those and got a bit of momentum,” said Shilton.
“I hit a couple of pretty average shots on the back nine and just didn’t really get any scores going but I got super lucky on 17, I hit a terrible tee shot which probably bounced out of bounds and managed to come back in again and managed to make four so that was pretty big.”.
“I’m pretty happy with how it went overall, I three putted 14 for par, which was really the only one that felt like a bogey, but no bogeys so it’s all good.”
Shilton felt comfortable out on course, believing that a clear head helped him on his way to the bogey free round.
“I really haven’t been playing a whole lot which is good, the brain is working a lot better, I felt comfortable out there today,”
“Before this year I hadn’t had a decent break for probably six or seven years and that has definitely shown, just mentally if I wasn’t playing well the last few years I would just struggle to get it done.”
“Today I hit a few bad shots and it just didn’t really faze me, I just kept going and managed to get a good score on the board.”
Winning the South Pacific Golf Open Championship would be a huge break for the 33-year-old who has spent seven years competing on the PGA Tour of Australasia.
“It would be pretty big, I’ve been playing Aussie Tour for seven years now and had half a dozen top 10’s in these types of events so a win would be huge,”
“The tournament organiser said to me this morning that I am the only one to have played this event all five years, so it would be nice to get a win up here,” added Shilton who has supported the event since it was a pro-am.
Continuing his relaxed attitude, Shilton will treat the final round as just another day on course.
“At the end of the day it’s all the same, you just have to go out there and play.”
“I think that is part of what I am getting better at and learnt this year, just go out and play and try to enjoy that’s the main thing.”
“If I can do that I’ll play well and if I play well I’ll enjoy it, I’m looking forward to it.”
First round leader Henry Epstein bounced back today shooting 5-under the card to move into second place, three shots back from Shilton.
Shilton’s compatriot Ryan Fox goes into the final round in third place on 9-under par.
A further shot back is defending champion Matthew Griffin who is joined by Kurt Carlson and Gavin Flint.
The fourth and final round of the South Pacific Golf Open Championship gets underway tomorrow at 7am local time of 6am AEST.
For Round 4 tee times click here
For Round 3 results click here