Becky Kay is not about to let a shaky second round deny her the chance to become only the second female to win the Australian Master of the Amateurs at Royal Melbourne.
The Gold Coast youngster found form early with an eagle on the par-five 12th however four bogeys in the next nine holes opened the stage for challengers.
Unable to rally in her closing nine, the Queensland Academy of Sport star settled with a closing three-over-par 75 round to sit even after an opening equal course record 69 round yesterday.
While most players struggled on the Sandbelt layout, Grace Kim remains hot on her tail after a one-over-par 73 score to trail by one and share second place with overnight contenders Steph Kyriacou and Julienne Soo posting rounds of 75 and 74 respectively.
Western Australia’s Maddison Hinson-Tolchard was just one of two women to post red figures today after a blemish free 70 moved her back into contention, joined by Kono Matsumoto’s one-under-par 71.
The Australian’s Justin Warren is fighting a horde of impressive international players to the year’s first big amateur title including overnight challengers Keita Nakajima of Japan, and Matthew Wolf of the United States.
Warren backed up an opening three-under-par 69 with a swag of birdies on the 3rd, 10th and 11th to sit four-under-par through the halfway mark.
World No. 4 Wolff and last year’s #AusOpenGolf low amateur Nakajima were unable to find their groove for mixed bag rounds of 73 and 74 respectively, with England’s Jake Burnage still well in touch just a further shot behind after a classy two-under-par 70.
Round of the day belonged to Josh Armtstrong who slashed an astonishing 16 shots from his opening 81 score to post the best tournament round of seven-under-par 65.