Australian Open: Matt Jones stretches lead to three shots
The suffocating pressure of trying to close out the Australian Open can never be discounted but runaway leader Matt Jones has faced the same challenge before and won.
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Keeping up with the Joneses is proving impossible for everyone at the 104th Australian Open.
Try as they might, no-one was able to bridge the gap to halfway leader Matt Jones, who is perfectly placed to get his name engraved on the Stonehaven Cup for a second time barring a last-day turnaround.
The suffocating pressure of trying to close out a championship means that can never be discounted but Jones has faced the same challenge at the same Australian Golf Club course and come through smiling even if his nerves were frayed at the end.
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That was in 2015 when the Sydneysider led the Australian Open by three shots heading into the final round with Adam Scott and then world No.1 Jordan Spieth breathing down his neck.
Jones eventually held on to win by a stroke but only just, after frittering away his lead at the start before regaining it on the back nine.
He has a three-shot lead again this year after shooting 68 in his third round to reach 13-under and feels confident he can get the job done after doing it once before.
“I haven’t won a lot of golf in my life. I’ve won the Houston Open and I’ve won a couple of other smaller tournaments and the Australian Open but that’s only four years past so I can draw on some of that experience of course,” he said.
“I just have to stay patient and give yourself opportunities.
“I know the golf course, I know the breaks pretty well on the greens, which I feel very comfortable putting on so if something does happen like it did in ‘15, I’ll be comfortable and won’t have to worry about it.”
Jones’s closest pursuer this time is American Cameron Tringale, who is at 10 under and outright second as the big names all fell away when the wind gathered strength in the afternoon and made low scoring even more difficult.
South African Louis Oosthuizen, who briefly held the outright lead until he bogeyed the eighth hole, drained a 50-foot birdie putt from off the 17th green to end the day at nine under, tied with Japanese amateur Takumi Kanaya and England’s Paul Casey, who also got to the top of the leaderboard before he imploded on the ninth, double-bogeying the ninth after missing a two-foot tap in.
“I just need the fortune to turn around,” Casey said. “The game that infuriates us, sometimes it gives back on occasions as well. Maybe it can give back tomorrow.”
Jamie Arnold, playing in the morning, shot a 64, the lowest round of the tournament, to charge up the leaderboard at eight-under while Marc Leishman drained a birdie putt on the last for a 70 to go into the last day six behind Jones and needing something special to win his first professional title at home.
“To shoot under par, I was really happy with that. It would have been pretty easy to shoot one or two over and be out of the tournament but I feel like I’m still in it,” Leishman said.
“I’ll need to play really well, but I feel like my game’s there, it’s ready to do that, it’s just a matter of making the putts.”