After muscling his way to a two shot lead New Zealand’s Nick Gillespie has blow his chance of capturing the Victorian Open after failing to sign his scorecard.

Gillespie signed for a bogey free 65 on the Thirteenth Beach course before later being approached by tournament officials and advised of his disqualification.

“It’s an unfortunate situation that no-one likes to see but at the end of the day all the players know it is their responsibility to sign the card and it’s a lesson he’ll learn and never repeat, I hope,” said Andrew Langford-Jones, Director of Tournaments for the PGA Tour of Australasia.

Nick Gitllespie outed from Victorian Open after failing to sign his scorecard.

Whilst understandable disappointed, Gillespie was able to reflect on the situation in a light hearted manner.

“I have been practicing my signature this afternoon in preparation for next week,” said Gillespie, who will have the opportunity to correct his mistake next week at the NZ PGA Championship.

With Gillespie out of the event it was Australian’s Steve Jones and Andre Stolz leading after scores of five under par 67s.

“The front nine was beautiful, the wind started getting up a little on 10 all the way through the back nine but I was lucky that I played good and shot 4-under on the front,” said Stolz.

“Obviously I looked at the forecast and its going to blow pretty good this afternoon so you sort of get a bit more fired up to take advantage of the morning tee time.”

Jones echoed Stolz sentiments.

“On courses like this – close to the ocean, it’s likely that it will be quite windy so you really have to make the most of it quite early when it’s a bit easier, so it was nice this morning,” said Jones.
A weather enthusiast Stolz has been studying the conditions headed towards Barwon Heads for the remainder of the Victorian Open.

“I am a nut with the weather, I like to know what’s going on and it looks like we have had all the conditions this week – Monday with the northerly, Tuesday with the Southerly and yesterday it was an easterly,” said Stolz.

“It’s definitely about strategy around this golf course, I think with the south-easterly blowing as strong as it is makes the course more playable, if it was a south-westerly it would be a lot harder and the scores would be a lot worse.”

“Obviously there are birdies out there if you play well, like I did today, but there is plenty of trouble on every hole.”