Playing at the Thirteenth Beach Golf Links beach course, O’Malley finished round one at even par, a long way behind the contenders but still in a reasonable position to at least make the cut.

As day two went on, though, it became clear that he would need to match or better that effort in order to play a part in the weekend action.

He wasn’t able to do it.

The Bathurst veteran was among the earlier groups out during round two, with Scott Strange’s freakish nine under 63 from round one setting a lofty benchmark.

Playing on the creek course, he found the going heavy.

Unlike day one, where he was up and down throughout, with birdies offsetting his dropped shots, at no stage could he find any momentum in round two.

He began with four consecutive pars to at least maintain some sort of consistency, but things began to unravel at the fifth.

He gave a shot back on the par four, steadied with a couple of pars, but dropped another on the eighth, also a par four.

Turning at two over, he knew that he had to lift in order to make the cut, which at that stage was projected at even par or one over.

Things did start to get better, and he managed to avoid dropping any more shots for the time being before really giving himself a chance at contesting the money rounds with a birdie at the par four 14th.

It was a false dawn.

A par at 15 and a bogey at 16 made his task almost impossible at two over, and for good measure he dropped another shot on the 18th to finish at three over.

Heading into yesterday’s final round it was Queenslander Adam Blyth who was setting the pace, going into the deciding 18 holes with a three shot lead at 13 under.

He was ahead of a three-man group – Kiwi Michael Long, and Aussies Matthew Millar and Stephen Dartnall – at minus 10.

Strange wasn’t able to follow up his brilliant opening round with anything similar and started the last day still at nine under, though he was still well in contention.