December 19-22
RACV Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
AUD$1,500,000
Round 1, Round 2, Round 4

Adam Scott will take a one shot lead into the final round of the Australian PGA Championship, setting up a thrilling Sunday at RACV Royal Pines Resort.

“It's incredibly bunched, and if it's windy tomorrow, it's going to be hard for anyone to really separate themselves unless they just play an incredible round of golf, go out there and roll in a lot of putts. For me, my strategy's going to be the same. Unless I hole a lot of long putts, I don't see myself just running away with this thing. I'm in for a fight tomorrow.

“I've tried really hard to keep my intensity up after last week, and my focus on the course. I've had a couple moments where I've wavered, but I've managed to pull it back together. It would be nice to cap off this year with a win here at home because I know what the confidence of that can do going into next year and just kind of make things a little more comfortable running into the Masters time.”

The 2013 Masters Champion, who also won this event that same year, carded a three under par round of 69 to move to ten under par, one clear of fellow South Australian Wade Ormsby. The pair, both from the city of Adelaide, grew up playing junior golf against each other. Ormsby carded a two under par round of 70 to reach nine under par on the Gold Coast.

“I put myself in perfect position going into Sunday. It's tricky out there with the wind and some of the pin positions. Everything's getting firmer. I'm not sure how those boys shot their scores this morning, but you just have to hang in there.

“It's hard to kind of get out in front and go, but I guess any course, if you hit enough good shots and hole enough putts, you can get going. I think you need to putt well in order to do that, but you've still got to play the golf course on its merits. There's going to be some tricky flags tomorrow and there'll be some gettable ones, so I'll just keep plodding my way around and play the same type of golf I've been playing and see where that leaves me.”

Scott, who represented the International side at last week's Presidents Cup, and Ormsby, who is searching for his second European Tour title, faced-off in a play-off at this event in 2014, but both lost out to Greg Chalmers, who won his second Australian PGA Championship title after a marathon seven extra holes.

Australian Nick Flanagan flew up the leaderboard on moving day, making the most of benign conditions in the morning to card a course record-equalling nine under par round of 63 to move into third place on eight under par. He is joined on that number by compatriot Min Woo Lee, New Zealander Michael Hendry and Carl Yuan, of China.

“I would give my game probably eight out of ten today," said Lee. "There were a few mistakes, but I held in there and hit very good shots, probably one of the best ball striking rounds I had all year. It was nice to back that up and hopefully there's one more tomorrow.

“The thing about golf is the one week where you don't make mistakes, you're probably going to be up there in the lead or going to win - I'm still looking for that. Hopefully, it's this week. But I'm still learning a lot about myself. There's a lot of wind out here, every shot counts. Hopefully I can learn from everything I do every week.”

Spaniard Alejandro Cañizares, who teed off in the first group on Saturday morning, carded an eight under par round of 64 to move into a share of seventh place on seven under with Australian Nick Cullan.

“All week I felt like I was hitting the ball well, I just wasn't scoring in the beginning," said Cañizares. "Yesterday I went double (bogey) and then bogey and I was four over with four to go – I said ‘let's try and make four birdies to come in'. I made three birdies on the last four and made the cut on the number with a birdie on the last.

“Today was one of those days where there was no wind, I was first off and the golf course was perfect and I started hitting great shots with my irons. It was one of those days that I was putting well and hitting good shots, I thought I could get up there and keep it going. It was a shame having a couple of bogeys, I had a bad tee shot on the par five, but then I had two birdies to fix it.”

In ninth are a trio of European Tour members, Aaron Cockerill, of Canada, South African Bryce Easton and Frenchman Romain Wattel.

Defending champion Cameron Smith, seeking an historic third consecutive Australian PGA Championship will start the final round five shots back on five under par, in a share of 12 th place.