American Jim Herman has followed up his opening-round, course record-breaking 62 with a flawless 70 on Friday, giving him a three-stroke lead heading into the final 36 holes of the Moonah Classic at Moonah Links.
The Ohio native has moved to 12 under overall at the Nationwide Tour co-sanctioned tournament, just a week after missing the cut at the New Zealand Open, to lead from local Steve Jones who backed up his own opening 68 with a five-under 67.
After patchy rain fell in the morning on a day when the wind troubled the players more than it had on Thursday, Australian Andrew Buckle (68) and Argentine Fabian Gomez (68) finished tied together in third place on seven under.
After opening with a 66 that had looked set to give him the 18-hole lead before Herman's heroics, Andre Stolz was unable to maintain the early momentum that took him to eight under, finishing with a 72 and level with Steven Bowditch (68), American Doug LaBelle (69) and Canadian Jon Mills (70) on minus six.
Rounding out the top 10 on five under are Australian quartet Craig Scott (69), Jarrod Lyle (70), Mitchell Brown (70) and Aaron Townsend (71) and Kiwi Gareth Paddison (71) while Americans Skip Kendall (70), Scott Gutschewski (71) and Ryan Armour (72) are 14th on minus four.
A day after shooting 71, defending champion Alistair Presnell got to four under on the front nine but late bogeys left him with a 70 and at minus three, while Craig Parry (70) and last-start NZ Open winner Robert Gates (72) are among those tied for 38th on one under.
While Steve Allan (76), Bobby MacWhinnie (78) and Bob May (73) were among those who made the cut at plus one with nothing to spare, Peter O'Malley (74 for four over), Nick Flanagan (77 for plus six) and 2008 winner Ewan Porter (79 for nine over) weren't as fortunate.
Having reeled off five birdies each on the front and back nines on Thursday, Herman had a slower start on Friday as three times he found trouble with approach shots and on each occasion got up and down for par.
From there he managed to pick up his first birdie at the 6th to increase his lead to five strokes, before another birdie at the 14th restored his advantage to four shots and while Jones closed to within three it could easily have been two had he not recovered from a stray approach at the last.
"It was a quick turnaround which is nice, I seem to like (playing) late (and then) early," Herman said.
"I can just keep the momentum going so that was a good thing for me, I didn't have to sit around and wait til the afternoon round today."
"I think that's the high point right now, staying bogey free. There's plenty of birdie opportunities but to not give any back so far is fulfilling for me so I' m going to try and keep that going this weekend."
A winner in Arizona on the Gateway Tour in the United States two years ago, 26-year-old Jones has put himself into contention with the best round of the day, atoning for a bogey at the 1st with a pair of birdies to the turn and four more coming home.
"I started off fairly poorly actually (and) bogeyed the first hole and