Two young South Africans and one of the few African-Americans in professional golf hold joint leadership of the Australian PGA Championship on the Gold Coast after three rounds.
American Harold Varner III and South African childhood friends Dylan Frittelli and Zander Lombard are top of the leaderboard on three-under overall as a thrilling conclusion to the tournament looms on Sunday.
Along with fourth-placed Australian Nathan Holman, who is two shots adrift, they are the only players left in red numbers - indicative of the difficult windy conditions and the uncompromising nature of the new-look course at Royal Pines.
Varner produced the day's best score, a sizzling bogey-free six-under-par 66 to rocket into serious Kirkwood Cup contention.
But to be any chance of securing his first tournament win as a professional, the 25-year-old from Akron, Ohio will need to see off around half a dozen others still in with a sniff.
At the top of that list are Frittelli and Lombard, two rising stars of South African golf, who both shot third rounds of one-under 71 and seem to be across the unpredictable weather, having grown up on coastal courses in South Africa.
"We're very good friends but we haven't had an opportunity to play together a lot," said Lombard, whose third-round highlight was a chip in for a birdie on the tough par-three 16th.
Lombard, 20, led the field after day one on five-under and said he was surprised his current score was good enough to put him in front.
"Nobody expects to move backwards and stay in the lead, but the course is really playing hard," he said.
Varner has earned a spot on the PGA Tour for the new season, becoming the first African-American player to do so from the Web.com Tour platform and the only one on the PGA circuit aside from Tiger Woods.
Motivated to come to Australia to help round off his game and catch up with former college teammate Jackson Stuckey, who is based in Sydney, Varner had his share of luck - he hit the grandstand with his approach on the final hole, but managed to recover for par and stay near the top of the leaderboard.
But Varner's success has put paid to Stuckey's plans of sampling the glitzy Gold Coast nightlife.
"He thought he was going to get wild if I shot 80 today but now he's got to go to bed early," Varner said.
Equal fifth are Canberra's Matthew Millar (74) and overnight leader David Lingmerth, who had a day to forget.
The Swede started his third round with a one-shot buffer, but double-bogeyed par fours 10 and 13 to slip back to even par for the tournament and three shots off the pace.
There are a six-pack of Australians tied for seventh on one-over-par: Daniel Nisbet (67), Richard Green (70), Cameron Smith (71), Michael Wright (71), Jack Wilson (71) and Dimitrios Papadatos (71).
But Australia's highest-ranked player, pre-tournament favourite John Senden, shot a poor four-over-par 76, taking him to 10 over for the championship.
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