Alex Simpson would beg to differ.

The 37-year-old Sydneysider carded a fine seven-under-par 64 to lead the South Coast Open at Moruya today, cashing on in some great recent form.

He leads by one from Queenslander Peter Martin, who roared home to shoot a 65 by playing his final four holes – on the front nine – to reach six-under.

Former PGA Tour winner Andre Stolz and DP World Tour player Deyen Lawson joined early leader Larry Austin at four-under in a share of third, while James Grierson and Andrew Evans are the biggest names among a bunch at two-under.

"I’ve been playing well, although I’m not sure that doing it with your mates is the ideal way of replicating tournament pressure.” - Alex Simpson.

Simpson, the 2007 Australian Trainee Professional champion, was prominent at this month’s Queanbeyan Open, then maintained that touch with a couple of subsequent 63s in club competitions at The Ridge Golf Club in south-western Sydney.

“Yeah, I’ve been playing well, although I’m not sure that doing it with your mates is the ideal way of replicating tournament pressure,” Simpson said with a smile.

“But I feel like I’m hitting it pretty solidly at the moment and … you have to shoot those scores, no matter where you are, I suppose.”

Simpson rifled a 3-wood to six metres on the first hole today, then didn’t look back.

“It was nice to roll in an eagle to get it going and I just managed to keep it up,” he said.

“I left another eagle (attempt) short on the eighth which wasn’t great, but the rest was pretty reasonable.”

Simpson said he’d take an adaptive approach to tomorrow’s final round, but wouldn’t try to change too much about his game.

“Obviously the weather can play a big part in what you do, but I’m hitting it pretty well so probably won’t change too much.”