Defending champ Joaquin Niemann shoots 64, gets within two at Australian Open

MELBOURNE, Australia — Lucas Herbert surrendered his outright lead of the Australian Open and will go into the final round tied with American Ryggs Johnston while South Korea’s Jiyai Shin took the outright lead in the Women’s Australian Open being played concurrently at two courses on the famed Melbourne sand belt.

Johnston shot a 4-under 68 on Saturday to pull level with Herbert, who could only manage an even par 72, to share the lead at 14 under at Kingston Heath, which is hosting the final two rounds after rotating with the Victoria Golf Club for the opening two rounds.

“A little bit frustrating but sort of no ground lost really. I’m still in the lead,” said Herbert, who has had the lead since the opening round. “I might have just let a few more people back into the tournament but still leading, still where I want to be so, yeah, good result from a frustrating day.”

Johnston fired six birdies in 12 holes Saturday before a seven at the par-5 14th stalled his momentum at Kingston Heath, which will host the 2028 Presidents Cup.

The 24-year-old Montana native, currently ranked 953rd, recently graduated from the DP World Tour Qualifying School which Johnston said was helping him deal with the nerves of having a first professional victory in sight.

“For a while now I’ve been in pretty high-pressure situations, trying to get my card through Q-school — that final round is one of the most pressured and I did pretty well,” he said. “I just try to take that with me and use it as something to look back on and kind of tell myself that, hey, there’s a lot of people watching, a lot of pressure, but you can still do this.

Defending men’s champion Joaquin Niemann had the round of the day, shooting a 64 to storm into contention at two shots back, having started his round 10 strokes behind.

The Chilean was in a five-way tied for third at 12 under with last week’s Australian PGA champion Elvis Smylie (69), Finland’s Oliver Lindell (69), Australia’s Jasper Stubbs (68) and Wenyi Ding (68) of China.

The 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith shot 76 to continue his bad run from the back nine on Friday and was 12 strokes behind the leaders.

The Australian had bogeys at the first, third and eighth holes and a further two bogeys at 10 and 17, for only one birdie, and will end his four-tournament stint back home winless after slumping to a tie for 49th.

In the Women’s Australian Open, Shin took the outright lead with a three-round total of 14-under 204 after shooting a 67 on Saturday, while overnight leader 17-year-old South Korean amateur Hyojin Yang shot a 3-over 76 to fall down the leaderboard to sixth and eight shots back.

Shin leads by two shots from Australia’s Hannah Green, who carded a 68 after a wild round with eight birdies, a bogey and a double bogey.

Defending women’s champion Ashleigh Buhai shot 67 and was at 10-under, four strokes behind in third.

LPGA Tour regular Minjee Lee shot 69 and was at 1-under while her brother, PGA Tour player Min Woo Lee, had a 72 to stay at 3-under.

The tournaments are using alternating tee times — and with level prize money for the second consecutive year — at the par-72 Kingston Heath (par 73 for the Women’s Open) and par-71 Victoria Golf Club.