Halfway through the second round the South Australian natives shared the lead at 7-under par, Scott following up yesterday’s 70 with a 5-under par 67 on Friday morning with Ormsby adding a 69 to his Thursday 68 in the group immediately behind.

Their fathers, Phil Scott and Peter Ormsby, are both long-time PGA Professionals and the pair have been playing with and against each other since their early teens.

When they were both bested in the PGA Championship by Greg Chalmers five years ago, Ormsby was staying at Scott’s Gold Coast home for the week but rather than share a ride home, headed to the airport as Scott and Chalmers fought it out over a marathon seven-hole playoff.

“We drove to the course a couple of times that week so it was fun to have him around,” Scott said of hosting Ormsby in 2014.

“He has stayed in my place in Europe a bunch.

“He is the neatest, tidiest bloke there is so he’s always welcome to stay at my place because he cleans the joint up.”

Ormsby and Scott last played together at Royal Pines two years ago alongside Spanish superstar Sergio Garcia, Ormsby coming off a breakthrough win the week prior at the Hong Kong Open.

A second European Tour title eluded the South Australian in February when a double-bogey at the par-3 17th cost him the Vic Open title but rather than dwell on it concentrated on putting himself in contention more regularly.

“You just try to get on with it straightaway and take the positives from it,” Ormsby said of his late blunder at Thirteenth Beach Golf Links.

“The start of last year I was just trying to get myself in contention a lot more. Made a few changes in the golf swing. That was the main reason I did the changes, to get myself in the hunt more and I’ve clearly done that in the last 12 months.

“Haven’t converted them yet for wins but just got to keep on putting yourself in the hunt and that’s what I’ve done the last 12 months.”

When he rolled in a birdie putt from 12 feet at the 18th hole – his ninth of the day – Ormsby had moved out to 8-under and a three-shot buffer.

His first bogey of the week came when a birdie putt at the par-3 third slipped five feet past, a tee shot that leaked right on the short par-4 sixth leading to a second dropped shot and a share of the lead with Scott at 6-under.

A second consecutive eagle at the par-5 15th kick-started Scott’s round, three birdies in the final four holes giving him the perfect platform from which to build over the closing two rounds.

“I pulled a 7-iron somewhere that I didn’t like very much and made a bogey but other than that I think I pretty much hit 16 greens today, so it was fairly stress free,” Scott said, his lone bogey coming at the par-4 fourth when he missed the green left.

“I played fairly defensive into the greens because I thought the pins were actually a little more tucked today and to get it really close you must risk hitting it down some of the big runoffs off these greens.

“I didn’t really want to do that too much and I played safe.

“I rolled a lot of nice putts. A lot went by the edge, but I made a couple as well.”

The other big mover of the morning was South African Bryce Easton, who had five birdies and the lone bogey at the 17th in a round of 68 to move to 5-under and a share of third.