The Victorian\u2019s advantage was four shots until late, Henkel moving quickly to ensure he finished his round before a second storm cell potentially pulled the final group from The Vintage. A tee shot that found the trees right of the fairway would ultimately lead to a closing bogey and a slightly tighter gap to the nearest challengers.<\/p>\n
Overnight leaders, Darcy Brereton and Lucas Higgins, both finished at 4-under, part of a four-way tie in second with debut professionals Declan O\u2019Donovan and Adam Coull.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust going to go out and not think about anyone behind me,\u201d Henkel said of his planned approach to Sunday, when he will play with Coull and O\u2019Donovan.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s good golfers. Everyone can shoot the numbers. If I can go out and play well myself and have another couple under or whatever\u2019s out there for me, I\u2019m happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Birdieing the first hole of the day and the long par-3 eighth, Henkel mixed in two bogeys on the front nine before the storm hit at what was almost the perfect time for the 54-hole leader to reset and resume his round when he looked as if he would run away from the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it did. I played pretty solid on the front, nine, maybe I guess a little disheartened or frustrated with that,\u201d Henkel said of the timing of the interruption to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t, probably a few shots better, but I was lucky, and my caddie and I were chatting coming up nine. We\u2019ve played a lot better than even par through nine and were hitting a lot of good shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just settled me down a bit. I actually got a bit of food into me and just settled me a bit. It was good to have a bit of a break midway through, which you don\u2019t get.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henkel made three birdies in four holes from the 11th before his dropped shot at the last meant a 2-under 69 and gave the chasing pack a sniff heading into Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t out of position at all, really, today, except that last hole, and even hitting that second shot in, I hit a great shot,\u201d Henkel said.
\u00a0
\u201cIt was a bit of a tough shot, and I probably just didn\u2019t really commit to the bunker shot as much as I would have liked. It was one of the ones where I could kind of see the leaderboard and knew where I sat, and I just kind of accepted, all right, let\u2019s just finish off strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the top of those pursuers, Higgins and Brereton will be looking to bounce back from matching 3-over rounds of 74, while O\u2019Donovan (69) and Coull (68) will get a baptism of fire in their first tournament since both turned professional.<\/p>\n
Sitting 1-under-par for the tournament after reaching 4-under through 14 holes, Herbert headed for the range to remove some frustration before unleashing an attacking game plan on Sunday in an attempt to bring some pressure to Henkel and the others high on the leaderboard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got nothing to lose,\u201d Herbert said after closing with three bogeys in four holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can get out for a good start and put a number out there through the turn for the leaders to have a look at, then maybe there\u2019s some interest there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winner of the Gippsland Super 6 less than 12 months ago, Henkel is unlikely to be too fazed about the moves of Herbert or others, and not too worried about getting a good night\u2019s sleep before chasing a second Tour win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with how tired I am, it\u2019s a long walking course, I think I\u2019ll be right,\u201d Henkel said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy billets are great this week. I\u2019ll have a nice dinner, do the same thing, chat, and then get into bed and have a nice sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n \u00a9 Golf Australia. All rights reserved.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Victorian\u2019s advantage was four shots until late, Henkel moving quickly to ensure he finished his round before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-287389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}