Haydn Barron, who qualified for the Open Championship at last week’s Australian Open courtesy of an eagle on the 72nd hole, which earned him a T4 finish, had carded an eagle and three birdies within four holes today to be leading comfortably by three shots heading into the 16th hole.

However a disastrous triple-bogey from the Western Australian, that included two missed putts from three feet, opened the door for Hayden Hopewell in just his third professional tournament, and Tom Power Horan, winner of the event in 2019, to join him at the top of the leaderboard heading into Sunday’s medal match play section.

“(It) felt like to be honest I didn’t really hit a bad shot on that hole and walked away with seven,” the 26-year-old said of the triple-bogey.

“So it was a bit flattening because obviously I was on a bit of a heater there, and you know would have been nice to lead outright, but we’ll have to take the tie instead.”

While disappointed with the tie for first, it won’t matter too much to Barron as tomorrow’s match play format will see the top eight finishers from today have a bye in the first round, which the recently turned professional heads into with reinforced self-belief.

“I’m running so high on confidence anyway, just from last week. I feel like I haven’t played any different this week to how I have the first kind of four or five events of the year.

“It just the results hadn’t been there, and yeah, now with a bit of confidence and a couple putts dropping it’s starting to show, so I’m really keen for tomorrow and for the remainder of the year.”

Overnight leader Alex Edge managed to hang on to fourth place at -13, finishing in a tie with fellow New South Welshman Justin Warren, while Nick Voke, Zach Murray and Josh Armstrong (T-6) rounded out the final three valuable positions inside the top eight.

There were six players tied for 22nd position at the end of the day’s proceedings, with a playoff on the 18th needed to separate those at -7 and decide the final three positions in tomorrow’s field.

David Bransdon, Andrew Martin and Kevin Yuan all made par on the playoff hole to progress.