Starting day three at Royal Birkdale Golf Club with a two-stroke lead, Herbert was tied at the top before he teed off; Kiwi Ryan Fox firing the third eight-under 62 in two days to match the lowest round in major championship history and ignite his tournament aspirations.

Herbert will start the final round three strokes back of American Sam Burns (65, 10-under) and paired with Swede Ludvig Aberg in the third-to-last group, well within range to make a Sunday run at the Claret Jug.

The top of the leaderboard is littered with Australasian players, with two former Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit winners in Fox and fellow Kiwi Kazuma Kobori, Herbert and four-time Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia winner Cameron John all inside the top 11.

Kobori’s round of three-under 67 saw him climb 27 spots into a share of 11th and a Sunday pairing with Japan’s Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama.

John (69) will also start the final round in a share of 11th and with a shot of becoming just the fifth Australian to record a top-10 finish in their Open Championship debut (Joe Kirkwood Snr, 1921; Norman von Nida, 1946; Peter Thomson, 1951; Ian Baker-Finch, 1984).

A day after he and Sam Burns joined the “62 Club”, Herbert was reminded that the game isn’t always so straightforward.

After two-putt pars at both one and two, the Bendigo bulldog went long with his approach from the right rough into the par-4 third and would fail to get up and down for par.

It saw him fall into a share of fourth as Burns, Fox and Jackson Suber assumed the front-running position, but Herbert is not one known to fade away quietly.

He stiffed his tee shot to the tricky pin at the par-3 seventh to five feet to get back to eight-under and then assumed the outright lead once again when he got up-and-down from just short of the green at the par-4 ninth after bludgeoning his tee shot 356 yards, his longest of the day.

The 30-year-old very nearly chipped in for birdie at 13, amidst a run of five-straight pars, but then the game got hard.

He missed the green left at the par-3 15th and couldn’t get his second to stay on the green and then sailed the green at the par-4 16th on his way to a second straight bogey.

With Burns pushing further ahead, Herbert engaged in a lengthy discussion with an R&A rules official, before taking a penalty drop after a wild tee shot on 17 and then conjured a miraculous recovery to save par.

“I kind of got a feeling when the ball sort of went down where it was, I was like, ‘I feel like I could hit something pretty special here,’” said Herbert, whose 3-iron from 238 yards on the left edge of a Birkdale dune ran past the edge of the hole, before coming to rest 20 feet from the flag.

“I’d just made two bogeys. I’m like, ‘This is either going to be unbelievable, or this could be the end of my tournament.’

“I’m happy it came off. I think that slots into the top-10 for shots that I’ve hit.”

He would need to take a drop again on 18 – this time without penalty – when his tee shot flew outside the gallery fencing left of the fairway.

And again, he would produce a remarkable recovery to give himself a birdie putt from 49 feet, lagging up to just outside a foot to sign off on a 71.

“I’ve got a lot of positive things to roll into tomorrow,” said Herbert post-round; his previous best finish at The Open a tie for 15th at the 2022 championship won by Cameron Smith at St Andrews.

“If I can build off that momentum that I kind of got off the last two holes there, scrambling to make a couple of pars, then hopefully I can use that and play some golf off the back of that tomorrow.

“I’ve loved all the feelings this week of being in contention, competing. I just want to kind of experience that because that’s the stuff I grew up dreaming of doing and what I play the game for.”

He is also giving Fox a two-stroke buffer after the burly New Zealander delivered arguably the shot of the week from the fairway bunker on the 18th hole to catapult himself from a share of 52nd through 36 holes to Sunday’s final group.

Out in 5-under 29, the 39-year-old barely cleared the lip with an 8-iron from 193 yards to find the green; the first of 17 players for the week to find the putting surface from that bunker.

“I was on a little upslope,” Fox explained. “I had a number to get 8-iron over the front bunker, and I knew I had to hit it perfectly to get it over the lip.

“I did, but it only just got over the lip.”

An eagle at the par-5 17th was the highlight of Adam Scott’s 1-over 71; Min Woo Lee giving himself few genuine birdie chances in his 71.
 
Round 3 Australasian scores
T2 Ryan Fox (NZ) 72-68-62 - 202
T4 Lucas Herbert 70-62-71 - 203
T11 Kazuma Kobori (NZ) 70-69-67 - 206
T11 Cameron John 70-67-69 - 206
T38 Adam Scott 72-66-71 - 209
T64 Min Woo Lee 70-71-71 - 212
MC Cameron Smith 73-69 - 142
MC Daniel Hillier (NZ) 72-70 - 142
MC Travis Smyth 71-72 - 143
MC Jason Day 73-71 - 144
 
Round 4 tee times AEST
5:50pm Min Woo Lee, Tyrrell Hatton
7:40pm Adam Scott, Patrick Reed
10:05pm Cameron John, Daniel Brown
10:15pm Kazuma Kobori (NZ), Hideki Matsuyama
11pm Lucas Herbert, Ludvig Aberg
11:20pm Ryan Fox (NZ), Sam Burns