Joint leader Craig Parry was one of the lucky ones to reach the sanctuary of the clubhouse just as the local winds took hold, carding a four-under 68 on Thursday. Teeing off the 10th hole at 7:40am, the veteran Aussie took full advantage of the ideal early conditions to blitz around his first nine with a four-under 32 and kept steady for the rest of the round. The gale began blowing with around two holes of his day remaining, and Parry was relieved to get through winds he described as &aposabout 20 knots&apos with only a three-putt bogey on the 7th, his 16th, somewhat spoiling what was otherwise a superb round. So it&aposs no surprise that Parry admitted he was &aposhappy to be in&apos just on the stroke of noon. His impressions of the course was positive – although it might&aposve been a different story had he teed off in the afternoon – and he said the course would become a completely different proposition to those slogging it out in the later rounds. “It&aposs a course that when it isn&apost blowing, you can go out and shoot a low number; if the wind blows like it normally would, par&aposs a very good round,” Parry said. “We had great conditions out there earlier, the greens were reasonably receptive, the putting surfaces were very good and I played really well.” While there was disappointment he didn&apost make more of an impression in his second nine holes, it wasn&apost something he would lose too much sleep over. “I had plenty of opportunities that didn&apost go in – it&aposs just one of those things. If they start going in you get a bit of momentum, but they didn&apost go in on the back nine,” he said. “I would say I played pretty well both sides – there&aposs probably more birdies on the back nine the way the wind was blowing this morning.” With the wind taking charge and expected to do so for the rest of the afternoon, Parry sent a warning to the players still on the course. “It&aposs just very difficult to understand where to hit it because of the angles. A lot of time you&aposre in a valley and there&aposs hills either side of you and you don&apost understand where the wind is blowing from,” he said. “There&aposs some really difficult greens out there as well. The 16th is right up there with the hardest green I&aposve ever played on.” In fact, he was fairly certain his overnight lead would still be there come the end of the day and anyone who matched his 68 &aposwouldn&apost have played all eighteen holes, that&aposs for sure.&apos