Brad Kennedy moved into a one-shot lead as 13th Beach Golf Club showed its teeth on day three of the ISPS Handa Vic Open.
After very low scoring on Thursday and Friday, high winds and some heavy rain made life far more difficult on the weekend, with the lead staying at the 14 under mark where it had started the day.
Callum Shinkwin and Matthew Stieger showed there was a score out there as they set the clubhouse target at 13 under, and Kennedy played his first ten holes in two under to sit a shot ahead of them.
Fellow Australians Wade Ormsby and Jason Scrivener were both a shot off the lead at the turn, one ahead of South African Justin Harding and Scot David Law.
Stieger was out in the very first group of the day and made birdies on the second, third, tenth, 11th, 13th, 14th and last to get within one of the lead with a 65.
Shinkwin then joined him at 13 under with a 66 that included a double-bogey and eight birdies.
The Englishman made gains on the second, third, fifth, seventh, tenth and 11th, and bounced back from his blemish on the 13th with birdies on the 16th and last.
When the leaders got under way, the rain had relented a little but there was still a stiff breeze, although Kennedy made a birdie on the first from 15 feet.
Scrivener held the solo lead after co-overnight leader Nick Flanagan bogeyed the first but that would not last for long as the 29 year old found trouble in the waste area down the left of the second and surrendered a bogey.
An excellent tee-shot on the par-three next then allowed Scrivener to make a birdie from ten feet and when he holed from similar range on the next, he had a two-shot advantage.
The leader missed the green on the short but devilishly tough seventh and when he failed to get his pitch on the green and two-putted, a double-bogey left him in a four-way tie.
Kennedy was part of that group as he bounced back from a bogey on the seventh with a beautiful approach to the ninth.
Another second to just four feet on the tenth then edged him into top spot at 14 under.
Ormsby had joined Scrivener in getting in trouble down the left on the second to surrender a double-bogey but he took advantage of the par-five fifth and holed a 12-footer on the ninth to get back level for the day.
Harding had gains on the second, fifth, sixth, eighth, 14th and 15th in a 66 and was joined at 12 under by Scot Law, who birdied the second and then sandwiched two monster putts on the sixth and seventh with bogeys on the third and ninth.
Nicolas Colsaerts and David Bransdon were in the clubhouse at 11 under, with Paul Dunne and Jason Norris on the course.
