Western Australian golfer Michael Sim equalled the course record to claim a five-shot lead midway through the New Zealand Strokeplay Championships in Palmerston North today.

Sim fired a nine-under par 63 to equal the record set by Rotorua's Mark Smith three years ago. He has a stunning 36-hole total of 130, 14-under par after taming the Manawatu Golf Club today.

The Australians again dominated today, filling four of the top five names on the leaderboard. Sim holds a five shot lead over fellow Australians Mitchell Brown and Adam Porker, who are on 135, nine-under par.

The leading New Zealanders are Tauranga's Brad Iles and first round leader Travis O'Connell on eight-under par 136, along with another Australian Kurt Carlson.

Seventy-seven players will contest the final two rounds with the cut at five-over par 149.
New Zealand representative Mark Purser (Hamilton) was one of the notable omissions after missing the cut by one shot. He followed his first round 69 with a horror nine-over 81, turning even for the day after nine holes before dropping nine shots on the way home.

Sim produced the best round of his short career and the first time under 30, when he raced through his second nine holes in 29 with five birdies and an eagle at his last hole, the short par-4 ninth when he holed his wedge approach from 60m.

"I actually hit the ball better yesterday but I got the putter going today and holed a lot of putts," Sim said. "It's my second round without a bogey. That's the key to scoring here, along with keeping the ball in play off the tee."

Sim, who has been an Australian representative for two years, will take on the Kiwis again in next month's Four Nations tournament in Japan before heading to the Untied States to play several major amateur events.

Brown and Iles were the next best scorers today, both shooting six-under par 66 with the Kiwi player again showing he is well on the way to finding top form less than a year after his serious accident in the United States.

He fired a mixed bag with two eagles and four birdies mixed with a double bogey and bogey in an impressive display.

"My ball striking was really good today. I used a new 905T Titleist driver and I really drove it well," Iles said. "My driver was two years old and I wore it out."

"It gave me real confidence and I was accurate off the tee. You have to put it in play off the tee here to score well. And you have to really read the greens well."

Earlier Carlson fired his second consecutive four-under par 68 this morning with a solid display. One of the best of the morning players was Paraparaumu Beach player Ryan Leslie, who shot six birdies including four in the final five holes in his five-under par 67.

There are seven Australians in the top 20 qualifiers, although they will not have things there own way with four New Zealand representatives moving into contention. Iles leads the way on 136, but joining him in the Kiwi hunt is Rotorua's Jae An on seven-under 137 with fellow Bay of plenty representative Josh Geary on four-under 140 and one shot further back to Wanganui's Riki Kauika.

The Strokeplay Championship concludes on Thursday with the leading 32 players qualifying for the New Zealand Amateur Championship with the 36-hole final on Sunday.

Source - NZGA

Join iseekgolf.com - It's Free

Become a member of Australasia's number one golf website today!

Join now and you could win a Wii console plus the awesome We Love Golf! game »