McDade was out in the morning wave at Maryborough Golf Club and despite starting with a bogey, recovered sufficiently to shoot 65 and give the afternoon players something to chase.

And chase they did.

Brady Watt, James Marchesani, Ben Henkel, Bailey Arnott and James Conran all got to 5-under but none would surpass it, joining McDade with a share of victory.

“It’s a good bunch of guys to share it with,” said McDade after his second adidas PGA Pro-Am Series win.

“I honestly kind of counted myself out of it a little bit. I saw there were maybe five or six guys that were within a shot with nine holes to play.

“I’m not really sure how 5-under held up, but it did, so I’ll take that for sure.”

HOW THE WINNING ROUND UNFOLDED

Six players ended the day at 5-under but they did so in a variety of ways.

After an opening bogey on three, McDade responded with three consecutive birdies from the fifth hole to get his scorecard heading in the right direction.

Along with birdies at his first and final holes the highlight of Watt’s round was an eagle at the par-4 sixth while Marchesani finished eagle-birdie after finding himself 2-over early in his round.

Conran needed four birdies in his final six holes to join the leaderboard logjam, Arnott had four straight birdies in the middle of his round while Henkel was 6-under through nine holes before also finishing at 5-under.

WHAT THE WINNER SAID

“Kind of just proved to myself again that I can compete out here and compete with some of these players that have played a lot of good golf in their career,” who was the joint winner with Arnott and Henkel at the JET Group Clermont Pro-Am.

“The two wins I’ve had, I’ve been over-par through one hole, so I wasn’t too phased by it. I know that there’s birdies out here, so I just kept doing my thing and saw what happened.

“It’s good to share a win with players such as those guys. They’ve done a lot more than I have in a professional sense… but wouldn’t mind winning an event without Bailey and Ben Henkel there.”

LEADERBOARD RUNDOWN
T1        Connor McDade          65
T1        Brady Watt                   65
T1        James Marchesani        65
T1        James Conran              65
T1        Ben Henkel                  65
T1        Bailey Arnott                65
T7        Josh Clarke                   66
T7        Brett Rankin                 66

NEXT UP

Tin Can Bay Country Club hosts the NewGen Caravans Tin Can Bay Pro-Am on Tuesday followed by the $80,000 Optilease Redcliffe Pro-Am starting Thursday.