Deyen Lawson leads the Australian charge at the halfway stage of the men's Vic Open after first-round leader Ryan Ruffels closed with a calamitous quadruple bogey at 13th Beach.
After getting off to a flying start with a course record-equalling 61 on Thursday, Ruffels was still sitting pretty at 14 under with just one hole to play in the second round.
But it all went awry on the closing par-5 18th, with the 24-year-old hitting three shots into a hazard, two of which could not be found.
Ruffels eventually holed out for a quadruple bogey nine and a round of one-over 73, which dropped him all the way back to a tie for 15th at 10 under.
Local favourite Lawson, who did his professional traineeship at nearby Curlewis GC, went in the other direction on Friday, shooting a nine-under 63 to move to second at 16 under.
Lawson has already won the WA Open this season and sits in eighth spot on the Australasian Order of Merit.
But the outright leader is New Zealand's Michael Hendry, who tore up The Creek course on Friday morning with a bogey-free 10-under 62 to move to 18-under 126.
"It feels a little bit that way (that the stars aligned), yeah," said the 43-year-old Hendry, a former NZ Open and PGA champion and who has been a regular on the Japanese tour for a decade.
"It was one of those days where everything seemed to go well and I hit a lot of really good shots, and the putts dropped as well.
"It was a really nice day."
Gavin Fairfax was in outright third place at 14 under, a shot clear of four other Australians - Justin Warren, Mathew Goggin, Haydn Barron and amateur Jack Buchanan.
The halfway cut was made at five under.
