While the majority of the field was going backwards on Saturday at the Moonah Classic, and only 14 broke par, American Chris Kirk stormed to the top of the leaderboard with a seven-under 65 because he's 'always been a decent wind player'.
Strong south-easterly winds left their mark during the third round at Moonah Links and while 13 of his rivals also improved their scores despite the conditions Kirk went three shots lower than any of the others, his performance shaded only by Jim Herman's amazing course-record 62 from Thursday.
Tied 27th overall after 36 holes, 10 strokes adrift of his fellow American, Knoxville native Kirk wasn't bothered by the fact that the wind was blowing strongly, quickly setting about closing the gap with his first birdie of the day at the 2nd.
Having just missed a 10-foot birdie putt at the 1st hole, the birdie at the 2nd kick-started a run of three birdies in a row and four in five holes as he loomed into contention and having also birdied the 10th and 12th the lead was his outright when he also birdied 15.
Kirk very nearly finished with a 64, his long putt at the last hitting the back of the cup but bouncing back out to leave him with a tap-in for par but he wasn't cursing the miss afterwards as he was content with his day's work.
"Yeah the 18th is playing incredibly hard right now so I was very happy with my par that's for sure," Kirk said. "But yeah that putt definitely looked good, it looked like it might dive in there but that's alright, I made plenty of other ones."
Having grown up in Knoxville, where he came closest to his maiden Nationwide Tour win two years ago only to be denied in a playoff by Aussie Jarrod Lyle, 24-year-old Kirk has been able to further hone his game playing in the wind at his home course at Sea Island in Georgia.
"I was lucky to have a real good feel for it all day, how much the wind was going to affect it and hit a lot of solid shots," he added, having guessed that the wind was blowing about 10mph faster than it had in either of the first two rounds and affecting shots by about 40-50 yards.
"I think the key for me (is) I always try to tell myself when it's a really windy day like that is to never hit one hard ... it's a lot easier if you're making a much smoother swing like that."
"It (the wind) just makes it sort of a guessing game to an extent and thankfully I made a lot of good guesses today."
"Sea Island is an awesome place to play and practice and we do get a fair amount of breeze there and so you have to learn how to play in the wind."
"I definitely would say that's helped me (but) I would say I've always been a pretty decent wind player even before I moved down there just because I like to hit a lot of soft shots and punch shots and that type of thing."
When he graduated from the University of Georgia in 2007 with a sports business degree, having received the Ben Hogan award as the nation's top college player, Kirk then elected to turn professional.
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