After playing in the third-to-last group a week ago at TPS Hunter Valley, Wools-Cobb has gone from the hunter to the hunted at the Millbrook Resort.

His third round of six-under 65 on the Coronet Course was bettered only by Brendan Jones’ brilliant nine-under 62 and gives Wools-Cobb his best chance at a breakthrough professional victory.

At 17-under Wools-Cobb is two clear of 36-hole leader Chris Wood (68) with Japan’s Terumichi Kakazu (66) outright third at 14-under. Experienced Aussie trio Brendan Jones, Scott Hend (68) and Rhein Gibson (66) are looming in a share of fourth four strokes off the lead at 13-under.

Boasting three top-five finishes in the past two seasons on the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia, the 27-year-old born in Kingaroy was sublime in the middle part of his round.

A birdie at the par-3 fifth was the first of five straight, dissecting fairways and hitting blistering iron shots to set up chances from close-range at every hole.

Suddenly possessing a three-stroke lead, a wait in excess of 20 minutes on the 10th tee stalled Wools-Cobb’s momentum before a three-putt on the par-4 13th reduced his advantage to two.

He got that shot back at the very next hole with another superb mid-iron into the par-5 14th and then made a wonderful up-and-down from the back of the par-3 15th to stay at 16-under.

A second straight birdie from Wood again narrowed the margin to two on 16 but only momentarily, Wools-Cobb converting from inside two feet to restore his three-shot lead at 17-under.

The 2021 Vic PGA champion, Wood guaranteed his spot in the final group with a birdie at the par-3 18th but it’s Wools-Cobb who will carry the weight of 54-hole leader into the final round.

“It’s my first time doing it so it’s exciting. I’m in a pretty good head-space at the moment,” said Wools-Cobb.

“I’ve really been working on pre-shot routine, trying to stick to that. That got me through today. When I wasn’t feeling too good over a few shots it really got me through.”

He will lean on that again on Sunday with the added confidence of kick-starting his round again following the delay on 10.

“I don’t even know how long the wait was but it felt like an hour,” he added.

“I had a pretty easy par 5 coming up and not birdieing that was a little bit of a dampener but I’m pretty proud of the way I made a few birdies coming in.”

Out in the eighth group of the day after making the cut on the number, Jones shrugged off Queenstown’s cool, drizzly morning to set the course alight.

A par save from 15 feet on two kicked Jones into gear, who celebrated his 48th birthday on Friday.

He made birdies on three, four and eight but it was the back nine where he surged up the leaderboard.

He picked up shots at 10, 12, 13, 15, 17 and 18 in a bogey-free 62 that resembled practice rounds earlier in the week.

“Even my practice rounds coming in here, it was scary how the ball was just going where I wanted it to,” said Jones, who was tied for fifth at TPS Sydney two weeks ago, his first start for 2023.

“When you’re playing really well you feel that you should be at the top of the leaderboard and I was probably just forcing it a little bit.

“Teeing off early, I had the opportunity and if I could replicate some of the practice rounds and the couple of tournament rounds of a couple of weeks ago then I could shoot a good score.

“That whole back nine I was pretty much hitting it exactly where I wanted to hit it and gave myself chances on every hole.

“The old boy’s still got it sometimes.” Kiwi amateur and crowd favourite Kazuma Kobori shot three-under 68 on Saturday to be tied for seventh with Tomoyo Ikemura (66) and Gunn Charoenkul (67) of Thailand, 2017 champion Michael Hendry (65) and Korea’s Jaewoong Eom tied for 10th at 11-under.