In the toughest conditions of the week, Wang \u2013 who had led from the outset \u2013 produced an impressive 4-under 68 to reach 8-under, four clear of Amelia Harris (69) and overnight co-leader Amy Tang (72).<\/p>\n
In the boys\u2019 championship, Johnson\u2019s even-par round was enough to hold top spot at 6-under, with defending champion Cooper Moore (71) and Round 1 leader Ryan Xie (70) one shot back.<\/p>\n
Gusts of up to 50km\/h and periods of rain wreaked havoc across the field, with just six of the 155 players in the boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 fields finishing under par on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Wang of Remuera Golf Club managed the conditions superbly, carding eight birdies while inevitably dropping shots with a double-bogey and two bogeys.<\/p>\n
An inspired finish propelled her ahead, with the 15-year-old bouncing back from consecutive bogeys on 10 and 11 with birdies on five of her final seven holes to open up a commanding lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely not feeling as much pressure going into the final round,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still just going to play my own game and not really think about the scores.\u201d<\/p>\n
Victorian Amelia Harris posted her best round of the week with a 3-under 69 to move to 4-under, alongside Tang, while Camilla Kim and Feiyu Xing shared fourth at even par.<\/p>\n
In the boys championship, Johnson\u2019s round of even par was enough to maintain his advantage, despite early pressure from Moore.<\/p>\n
The defending champion caught fire on the front nine, surging to a 5-under 31 \u2013 highlighted by an eagle and three birdies \u2013 to grab a two-shot lead as Johnson turned in 1-under.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe holed a lot of great putts, so I didn\u2019t let it really phase me,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just stuck to my game plan and it worked for the most part. I made a few poor swings late, a few tired swings, but I managed to hang in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moore had also shot 31 on the front nine the previous day, but in far tougher conditions, the effort carried even more weight.<\/p>\n
It was a different story for Moore on the back nine, with a double-bogey and bogey on 14 and 15 dropping him back to 6-under.<\/p>\n
That opened the door for Johnson, who briefly reached 8-under with an eagle of his own on 13.<\/p>\n
A shaky finish of double bogey-birdie-bogey saw Johnson return to 6-under, while Moore\u2019s closing stretch of par-bogey-par left him one shot adrift.<\/p>\n
Moore likened the conditions to those he faced at the New Zealand PGA Championship at Paraparaumu Beach, where he finished runner-up against a strong professional field.<\/p>\n
Those experiences, combined with last year\u2019s Australian Junior Amateur win, had him confident heading into the final round.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll those little experiences lead up to moments like tomorrow and bigger things in the future as well,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
Round 1 leader Ryan Xie remained firmly in contention after a 2-under round, tied for second alongside Moore, while Cordell Hanare and Blake Cranston sat two shots back at 3-under with Japan\u2019s Kanchiro Katano and Harry Gourlay rounding out the top six at 2-under.<\/p>\n
The top 36 and ties across both the boys and girls championships contested Friday\u2019s final round.<\/p>\n
\n \u00a9 Golf Australia. All rights reserved.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the toughest conditions of the week, Wang \u2013 who had led from the outset \u2013 produced an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-597013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597013","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=597013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}