Kinsale’s John Murphy showed the patience of a veteran and birdied three of his last six holes to make the 54-hole cut with ease in the Dimension Data Pro-Am in South Africa.

The former Walker Cup star (23) had to endure a marathon 10,400-mile journey from Pebble Beach to Fancourt for the opening Challenge Tour event of the season.

But despite having to adjust to a 10-hour time difference and his lack of knowledge of the three venues, he made seven birdies in a four-under 69 on The Links layout at the George resort to go into the final round tied for 32nd on seven-under-par.

Scores

“I never really found myself in that much trouble, to be honest,” said Murphy, who was in the only member of the four-strong Irish contingent to make the four-under-par cut.

“I played very steady, made no real blunders, capitalised on my play today and gave myself a lot of chances.”

Tied 59th on three-under overnight, he birdied the first and third, bogeyed the fourth and sixth but then birdied the seventh and par-five ninth to turn in two-under.

A bogey at the 10th left him a shot outside the cut mark, but he birdied the three par-fives coming home, sandwiching a satisfying four at the 16th between birdies at the 13th and 18th.

“I decided to lay up, which is very unlike me,” he said of his birdie at the 16th “But then I hit a lovely third shot in close and made birdie. It took a lot of patience, given the position I was in, but I was able to step back and assess the situation.

“That was certainly a nice birdie to make after a sensible decision to lay up when I only had about 240 yards to the green.”

He’s looking forward to taking on the challenging Montagu course in Sunday’s final round and closing the gap on Germany’s Alexander Knappe, who shot a six-under 66 on the Montagu course to lead by a shot on 19-under par from South Africa’s Dean Burmester and New Zealand’s Daniel Hillier, who shot nine-under 63s on the Montagu and Outeniqua courses respectively.

Burmester also played in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and while he made a triple-bogey seven on the first hole at Outeniqua in the opening round, he’s since 20 birdies and three eagles with all three of those coming in round three.

Murphy has recovered well from his jet lag and he’s pleased to have started the season well.

“I didn’t have too many issues adjusting,” he said. “It’s my first time in South Africa, so I’ve made a couple of blunders with distances and so forth and I hadn’t seen any of the golf courses, so that was tough.

“I certainly wasn’t as sharp as I could’ve been, but I’m over the jet lag and I’m looking forward to seeing it up tomorrow.”

There was no luck for the rest of the Irish as they all missed the cut.

Royal Dublin’s Niall Kearney (33) shot a two-under 70 at Outeniqua to miss out by two strokes on two-under-par with Gavin Moynihan (27) a shot further back after a 75 at The Links.

Greystones’ Paul Dunne (29) made three birdies and three bogeys in a level par 72 at Outeniqua to finish on two-over.

On the DP World Tour, big-hitting Ryan Fox took one big step closer to a second DP World Tour title at the Ras Al Khaimah Classic.

Scores

The New Zealander doubled his halfway lead to six strokes as he carded a seven-under 65 at Al Hamra Golf Club to lead from Spanish duo Adri Arnaus and Pablo Larrazábal, Scotland’s Scott Jamieson and Poland’s Adrian Meronk on 19-under par.

“My head’s in a pretty good place. Ask me that on the first tee tomorrow and I might have a slightly different answer, but I felt like I had really good control over the ball today, only hit a couple of bad shots and holed some putts as well,” Fox said.

“So I’ve put myself exactly where I want to be and it’s all on me tomorrow, someone’s going to have to do something really low or I’m going to have to play poorly, so hopefully I can keep playing how I’ve played in the past few days and put it out of reach.”