It was quickly rectified as I hit a great shot into the second and made the putt for birdie. That was followed by another at the par 3 12th, my 3rd hole for the day. It was a great relief to finally make a birdie on a par three as they have been killing me this week. I was away and was feeling like I was now moving in the right direction. Despite having chances on the next 3 holes I didn't make any of the putts and had to settle for 3 pars. The par three next saw me miss the green long and left leaving a very difficult up and down to try and save par. When we got to the ball it was made worse by the fact that my ball was in a divot…..again. The strangest thing is that before the round today I decided to hit a few chip shots in practice out of divots. Murray Lott taught me a great technique for this shot whilst we were at the Aussie Open and I just decided to play a few this morning in my warm up. How fortunate as I was now faced with one. I hit a brilliant shot, sublime might have even been the word I used to describe it at the time with Dave! It was a great shot and allowed me to save par at an important time, just to keep the round going.
Pars at the 8th and 9th holes of my day saw me turn in -1 despite having a few good looks at birdie. I was getting a little anxious at that point as I new today was an important day to move forward. I played a perfect 10th hole but missed the birdie chance before finding the first cut of rough down the left side of the next hole. It is a par 5 and the left side leaves you a little blocked out by trees for your second shot, making it a completely blind shot over them if you choose to take it on. I opted to have a crack and hit a great high 2nd shot onto the left fringe of the green only about 5-6m from the hole. It is strange how things panned out today on course as before play this morning for some random reason I decided to hit a few fringe putts in practice. And now here I was with a fringe putt and it actually had the exact same amount of left to right break to it as well. I made it for eagle and felt like that was the kick start my back nine needed.
I played a perfect next hole on the short par for and converted my 5 foot putt for birdie before making one from around 30ft on the next for birdie too. I was on a role and with the holes I had left could really see an opportunity to make a few more birdies. I missed chances at the next two holes but made one at the par 4 16th hole of my day to get to 6 under. Now I stood on the par 3 where I had earlier in the week found the out of bounds and made a triple bogey. I had talked about this hole with Dave this morning saying we wanted to be really specific about the type of shot we were going to hit to make sure that I had a vivid picture of what I was wanting. We did that and I hit a great 4 iron that never left the flagstick just missing flying in the hole and leaving another good birdie chance. I hit a great putt but watched it curl around behind the hole. I played the 18th hole perfectly with a great drive and super second to have yet another chance at birdie but this one was a slick putt and in opting to make sure I didn't rush it by with adrenaline of shooting 7 under I made sure that it was a front edge speed putt. Because of that I just under read the break and it just ran over the lip and missed. Still, 6 under on day 5 was a very solid day and moved me up considerably in the overall standings.
My job is by no means done and I have one more good round to find in me for tomorrow. It has been a massive schedule with the Aussie Open and 6 rounds in 7 days there followed by one travel day and now 8 days in a row here. I am hoping and praying the fitness work I do will help me churn out one more good day at least before I can have a few days off. Thanks everyone for your support and I hope by tomorrow night I will get a high enough finish to get some main tour starts up here in 2014. The weather is predicted to be very average tomorrow so it's time for this little Qlder to stand up and show some serious ticker. Catch you tomorrow night with some good news hopefully!!