Purcell pleased as big move puts him within four of lead

Conor Purcell will have another opportunity to notch his maiden Challenge Tour victory on Sunday after a flawless 64 moved him into a share of third place and within four shots of the lead.

Purcell is ten-under-par through 54 holes of the Kaskada Golf Challenge while South Africa’s Robin Williams holds a three shot lead over Ben Schmidt on fourteen-under.

Purcell blitzed his way through Golf Resort Kaskada, carding seven birdies including three in a row from the 9th to soar into contention.

“It was just one of those days. I said to my caddie walking off 18 that we hit the ball in play and had a lot of nice numbers and held a few putts,” said Purcell who also added birdies on the first, sixth, fifteenth and eighteenth.

On a blustery day Purcell admits the wind helped him maintain his concentration.

“Sometimes the wind makes you focus in on where you are trying to hit it. It was very windy out there so you have to be very specific with your targets. I managed to keep the ball in play.

“All I can ask for is really Saturday is moving day so you are looking to make a move up the leaderboard and just give myself a chance going into tomorrow.”

At 24th in the Road to Mallorca Rankings with the top-20 earning DP World Tour cards in November the Portmarnock man is looking to move through the gears this summer.

“My golf has been really good the last few months. I’ve just had no momentum whatsoever, playing well but dropping shots when I was on a roll. Today I managed to keep the bogeys off the card which was good. I was just in that mindset where I wasn’t really thinking about it and din’t put myself in trouble at all and I don’t think I had to chip once which was nice.”

Last week’s runner-up Gary Hurley didn’t have things his own way in round three as he slipped to a four-over-par 75 to fall back to four-under despite finishing with three birdies in his last four holes.

Ronan Mullarney is three-over.

Scoring HERE

The Challenge Tour visits Ireland from August 1st – 4th at the K Club and CLICK HERE to secure your free tickets to the event where a host of Irish players including Conor Purcell, Gary Hurley, Mark Power, Ronan Mullarney and many more will be in action.