Sydney amateur Callan O’Reilly has upstaged his more-experienced rivals at Mt Broughton Golf and Country Club to lead the NSW PGA Championship into the final round.
O’Reilly, who gained a spot in this week’s PGA Tour of Australasia field after pre-qualifying at Highlands Golf Club on Monday, shot a near-flawless third round of six-under-par 66 to take a one-shot lead on Saturday.
The Pennant Hills club member is 12-under for the championship, with rookie professionals Matthew Stieger (71) and Daniel Nisbett (68) his nearest pursuers at 11 and nine under respectively.
New Zealander Ryan Fox (71) sits in fourth position alongside Sweden’s Thomas Petersson (73) and Adam Stephens (71) at 8-under.
Having previously played two NSW Opens, this week’s tournament is O’Reilly’s third PGA Tour of Australasia tournament.
However with a spot in the Australian Open and the Australian PGA Championship awaiting the victor, the 22-year-old says he’s hoping to focus on the job at hand and hopefully follow in the footsteps of last week’s New Zealand Open amateur winner Jake Higginbottom.
“Jake’s a great player and I’ve played a lot of golf with him,” O’Reilly said.
“Seeing a guy like him go out and win like that makes you think ‘why can’t I?’
“I think I’ll just go home and calm down a bit and try not to think about it. But with some of the players that are coming out to play next week – it would be absolutely unreal to get a start.”
O’Reilly had his first look at the Mt Broughton course on Tuesday and has signed for rounds of 71, 67 and 66.
Having won the 2012 Avondale Amateur and contested the British Amateur championship, he said his focus this year had been solely on gaining experience.
“At the start of the year the first goal was to make the state team and make the interstate series, but since then it’s just been about trying to get to the next step, which is national team level,” the youngster said.
“Obviously it’s a long way to go to there, but you’ve got to set a goal.”