Michael Sim (76) blows it in third round

of Moonah Classic to slump to ninth

Aberdeen-born Michael Sim crumpled to a 76 in the third round of the Moonah Classic tournament over the difficult Moonah Links lay-outm Melbourne, designed by five times Open champion Peter Thomson and twice host of the Australian Open.
But Sim, who emigrated with his parents to Australia when he was seven in the early 1990s, had boasted the previous day that he knew the course better than anyone in the field, having come through the Australian amateur system which is based at the Moonah Links.
It didn't look like that in the third round as Sim slumped from a share of the lead back to a share of ninth place, five strokes off the lead.
Sim had played 28 consecutive holes without a bogey until the roof fell in at the start of his third round. He bogeyed the first, took a double-bogey 7 at the long seventh and dropped another shot by bogeying the third - four shots shed to par over three holes.
Give him his due, Sim bounced back with birdies at the long fourth and short fifth before subsiding to another bogey at the sixth on his way to an outward half of three-over-par 39.
Untidy bogeys at the 11th and 14th left him in the doldrums until he birdied the long 18th for 37 home and a 76, nine shots more than he required in his second round.
LEADING THIRD-ROUND TOTALS
Par 216 (3 x 72)
207 Miguel Angel Carballo (Arg) 68 68 71.
209 Richie Gallichan (Aus) 71 68 70.
210 David Smail (NZ) 71 68 71, Peter O'Malley (Aus) 68 70 72.
211 Alistair Presnell (Aus) 72 67 72, Dustin White (US) 68 70 73.
Selected score:
212 Michael Sim (Sco) 69 67 76 (jt 9th).