Both Kulacz and Kelly finished the 9-hole track at 4-under, with four players tied third at 3-under.

Redemption was the theme of today for Kelly, who only narrowly lost out yesterday at Eynesbury to Andrew Campbell in a playoff.

Kulacz also backed up a solid day yesterday at Eynesbury, where he finished 2-back of the leaders, pleased to be heading back to WA after going one better today.

While Kelly has had a fruitful season, the drought-breaking win for Kulacz marks a welcome return to the winner’s circle.

HOW THE WINNING ROUND UNFOLDED

Kulacz played the Geelong course blemish-free today, with birdies coming at one, four, six and seven, the rest pars.

The West Australian wasn’t overly pleased with his game, but said the putter kept him in it.

Kelly took a slightly different journey to the winning number, with an early bogey seeing him 1-over after three.

An eagle at the par-5 fourth, and three more birdies coming in, saw the Victorian charge home to the joint win.

WHAT THE WINNERS SAID

Kulacz:

“I was just pretty scrappy to be honest tee to green, but holed a lot of good putts, which kind of kept the momentum going,” said Kulacz.

“The game hasn’t been great, so it’s nice to see a couple of red numbers at least the last week or so.

“Heading to Q-school start of April, try and get status back and we’ll go from there.”

Kelly:

“Very happy actually, I was sort of gearing up for a big week and yeah it went really well,” said Kelly.

“I practise a lot. I still enjoy practising, I haven’t sort of lost the passion to practise.

“Looking forward to the challenge of having some expectations, or at least dealing with them, and looking forward to playing that course (The National), and seeing if the form can keep going.”

LEADERBOARD RUNDOWN

-4 Rick Kulacz

-4 Andrew Kelly

-3 Alex Edge

-3 Darcy Brereton

-3 Austin Bautista

-3 Chris Wood

NEXT UP

The MMD Geelong 9 Hole Pro-Am was the last of the 2023-24 adidas PGA Pro-Am Series, what a successful series it has been!