Star attraction Daniel Hillier is one round away from giving the Millbrook crowd what they want.<\/p>\n
Tournament favourite Hillier came roaring home to snatch a one-shot lead in the New Zealand Open today.<\/p>\n
He went birdie, birdie, par, eagle, birdie over the final five holes to card a third round of 7-under 64, taking him to 18-under ahead of tomorrow’s final round.<\/p>\n
Hillier, the round one co-leader, is the highest-ranked player in the field and aiming to become the first Kiwi winner of the New Zealand Open in nine years.<\/p>\n
His third round was solid rather than spectacular through the first 13 holes – he had two birdies in that stretch – before his sizzling finish.<\/p>\n
Hillier’s play of the day was his delightful approach shot on the amphitheatre-style 17th, setting up a birdie putt and delighting the large crowd.<\/p>\n
“That was awesome,” Hillier told Sky Sport.<\/p>\n
“That’s some of the best crowds I’ve played in front of, hands down.<\/p>\n
“Pretty crazy finish. I knew there were a few chances coming in, and I knew I had to stay patient.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t quite have it early on but it was nice to finish the way I did.”<\/p>\n
Fellow New Zealander Kerry Mountcastle is tied for second with Australian professional Curtis Luck at 17-under.<\/p>\n
Both men, in the same playing group, bogied the 18th\u00a0hole.<\/p>\n
Mountcastle, who found the water on the last hole in front of a large Millbrook gallery, had nine birdies and two bogies in his 7-under 64 in the third round.<\/p>\n
Luck, who was tied for sixth after the second round, also had nine birdies and just that one late blemish as he signed for a 63 in glorious conditions.<\/p>\n
Australian LIV star Lucas Herbert is fourth at 16-under after a blemish-free third round of 62.<\/p>\n
Christchurch amateur Yuki Miya, who led the tournament by a stroke after two rounds, is tied for fifth with three other players at 13-under, and Champions Tour star Steven Alker is at 12-under.<\/p>\n
Queenstown golfer Ben Campbell is tied for 41st\u00a0at 6-under.<\/p>\n
NZ Open<\/p>\n
Leading scores<\/p>\n
-18 Daniel Hiller (NZ)<\/p>\n
-17 Kerry Mountcastle (NZ), Curtis Luck (Aus)<\/p>\n
-16 Lucas Herbert (Aus)<\/p>\n
-13 Tomoyo Ikemura (Japan), Wade Ormsby (Aus), Travis Smyth (Aus), Yuki Miya (NZ)<\/p>\n
-12 Steven Alker (NZ), Sam Jones (NZ), Naoyuki Kataoka (Japan), Chan Choi (Korea)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Star attraction Daniel Hillier is one round away from giving the Millbrook crowd what they want. Tournament favourite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-306135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}