By BOB PEARCE in Taupo
Nineteen-year-old Riki Kauika equalled the course record at Taupo yesterday with a seven-under 65 to keep a couple of Australians honest at the head of the New Zealand amateur strokeplay championship.
With 18 holes to play today, Canberra's Andrew McKenzie is on 207, nine under par. He leads by one shot from Kauika and the second-round leader, Victorian Jarrod Lyle.
Two shots further back is the remarkably consistent Taupo player Jason McIntosh, who shot his third two-under 70.
First-round leader Brad Shilton (Te Awamutu) is still very much in the hunt on 212.
But Kauika was clearly the star of yet another perfectly calm and sunny day. The Wanganui teenager won the South Island title earlier this year and was named this week in a New Zealand team to play in Malaysia.
He lives in Wellington these days and works closely with coach Mal Tongue, who was watching him yesterday. "I've played good every time he's watched me," Kauika said. "In the first two rounds I made bogeys from nowhere. Today I was hitting the ball pretty close."
He ran hot early in his round with birdies on the second, third, fourth, fifth and seventh.
There were two more birdies on the second nine and there could easily have been three - he hit the pin with his second on the 17th, but missed a one-metre birdie putt.
The 21-year-old McKenzie knows Taupo well. He was runner-up in the under-23 event there in January after finishing tied for first the previous year.
He rates Taupo among his favourite places in New Zealand - well ahead of Dunedin where he admitted the weather at the nationals last year got on top of him and he was unwell for a fortnight afterwards.
"This is a course where it pays to be conservative," he said. "I was over-aggressive in the first two rounds, trying to shoot too low. I made 12 birdies, but I also had nine bogeys."
His third round of 66 caught fire when he birdied the fourth, eagled the par-five fifth and chipped in for birdie on the next. On the second nine, he had four birdies and two bogeys.
Lyle, who shot 66 in the second round, was hitting the ball close but missing the putts he holed the previous day, and 69 was the worst he deserved.
Shilton had similar problems and his 73 included three bogeys in the closing holes.
Fifteen-year-old Jae An (Springfield) and 16-year-old Aaron Leech (Manor Park) are only six off the pace after rounds of 69 and 70 yesterday.
Of the New Zealand team to play in Malaysia next month, Bradley Iles is in Italy to contest the Bonallack Trophy, Kauika is second here, Kevin Chun (Titirangi) is equal ninth and Doug Holloway (Maraenui) is equal 32nd.
The oldest player in the field, 51-year-old Murray Martin from Waitara, Taranaki, is in 28th place after rounds of 73, 72 and 74.
He is used to the strokeplay pressure, having narrowly missed qualifying for the European seniors professional tour in Spain.
Two former national titleholders still have a chance of making the top 32. Aucklander Chris Johns, who won the matchplay title at Harewood in 1997, is level with Martin.
Terry Cochrane, now a high school phys ed teacher and part-timer golfer in Mt Maunganui, is 45th. He won the matchplay in 1981 at Timaru and the strokeplay in 1983 at Titirangi.
There were some sad stories on the day. Manukau's Franz Schwanner, who was third overnight, slipped 42 places after shooting 83 yesterday. New Zealand representative Mark Smith (Springfield) dropped from seventh to 32nd after a 78.
The matchplay field of 32 will play two rounds tomorrow.
Golf: 19-year-old equals the course record
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