The lanky Victorian, known mostly for going about his business quietly and efficiently, did exactly that during the third round at Palmerston Golf & Country Club when steady winds made birdies rare and overnight leader Daniel Gale stumbled on the front nine.

Kelly started with two straight birdies before mixing three more throughout his day against two bogeys to sign for 68 and 10-under total, a score good enough for a one-shot lead over four players, with Gale and Chris Crabtree one shot further back.

“It’s been going really well, enjoying Darwin, playing pretty nice, and just avoiding anything dumb at this point,” Kelly succinctly summed up his play over the opening three days.

The “dumb” things were easier to achieve on another hot day in the Northern Territory when the wind whipped up for the first tee times of the day, and bogeys and worse regularly befell players moving up the leaderboard.

Gale one of those to succumb to a big number early in his round at the par-3 4th with double bogey followed by bogey at the 9th when his fairway wood second from a downhill lie unceremoniously found the water.

Matias Sanchez, Ben Ferguson and Matthew Stieger also dropped shots on the front side, but all recovered to sit in the group one back of Kelly at the end of play, all of whom like the leader are chasing a first PGA Tour of Australasia win.

Michael Wright the only member of the nine-unders with previous Tour winning experience, the Veteran going bogey-free on Saturday with hopes steady as she goes golf will be the order of the day again on Sunday.

“Bogey-free when it was those sort of conditions was pretty good. It was really tricky,” Wright said.

“When it’s windy like this, there’s a couple of holes where you have to be really careful, maybe the wise head on the shoulders will help me in that regard tomorrow.”

Kelly, some 13 years Wright’s junior, relies on much the same temperament and game, and would clearly have no issue if the wind were to return for the final day. A day he is far from getting ahead of himself thinking about what could be, quickly shutting down mention of the unique crocodile-head trophy.

“Absolutely not,” he said of pondering what could come tomorrow. “Insert some boring one shot at a time answer.”

Despite smartly taking a tried and tested approach to the question of a first Tour win, the final day in the Top End shapes as anything but boring with 12 players inside four shots of the lead, and plenty of well-credentialed others not much further back.

Picture: Andrew Kelly during day three of the NT PGA

Leaderboard: Live Scoring: https://bit.ly/3AXlpBG