The third day of a golf tournament is moving day, the time when some challenges are made, and others fade away.

A good round can make a player a serious contender, while a bad one will all but end any realistic hopes of winning a tournament.

Only one player did any significant moving at the Gosling Invitational yesterday, and that was leader Joe Horowitz, he moved ahead, a lot.

A five-under par 65 sent him to nine-under for the tournament, and gave him an eight-shot lead as the rest of the field predominantly moved sideways and backwards, going into today's final round.

The two nearest challengers are Mike Donald (69) and defending champion Tim Conley (70) both on one-under par. A shot further back is Canadian Craig Marseilles who shot a one-under 69 and is level par for the tournament.

Horowitz's nearest challenger at the start of yesterday's third round was Bermudian amateur Daniel Augustus, whose second round 64 put him on three-under par and is the best of the tournament so far.

The 21-year-old couldn't repeat the feat in the driving wind and rain of yesterday, and eventually shot a five-over par 75 to slip back to a tie for fifth at two-over.

However he did enough to prove to playing partners Horowitz and Conley that he has what it takes to succeed at a higher level.

"Dan's got a ton of talent, he's got way more talent than I ever had, I'll tell you that much," said Horowitz, who is a former assistant golf coach at the University of Richmond.

"And he's 21 years old, I look for very big things from him. He's a great kid, good demeanour, for a 21-year-old having a struggling day like today, you expect a lot more emotional outbursts and I really didn't see that, which is good.

"He hung in there, he hit a couple of bad shots, and a couple you could tell he was upset, but overall I thought he handled himself very well."

Augustus, the defending amateur champion, is hoping that his round of 64, and general golf this week makes people sit up and take notice. He also hopes it will encourage the sponsors he needs to continue developing his career to come forward.

"I guess a 64 really woke everybody up," said Augustus. "I'm kind of a sleeper, not many people know about me, but they do now. And I really wanted to make myself known in this tournament.

"That's not my lowest score, I actually shot eight-under at school, so I know I can play at this sort of a level of golf.

"It's just a matter of me doing it over and over again. Today was a tough day, I was actually looking to go around even, maybe a couple under, but today was just another one of those days when nothing seemed to go in."

Fate seems to be conspiring against Augustus at the moment, several times yesterday the ball stubbornly refused to go into the hole when it seemed destined to do so.

He's also stuck in limbo, a former student at Paine College in Augusta, legal problems saw him lose his place at the school, and the golfing scholarship that went along with it.

"I'm actually trying to get back to school right now, but I need help with my funding," he said.

"My family can't really afford for me to be out there and getting a loan or something like that, and I had a couple of legal problems at my old school.

"They got rid of the golf team, they deemed me ineligible, they fired my golf coach and now they won't pay off my scholarship money that they owe me, and they won't release my transcripts so I can't transfer to another school. Right now I'm trying to find out if I could start all over again. I'm asking the NCAA, and hopefully that will work out.

"I'd like to go to Florida, but anywhere I can play golf all year round. I really love golf, and that's what I want to do with my life.

"I need full tuition, something between $20,000-$30,000 a year, but I just need that funding to get back to school and my family doesn't have that." As Horowitz said, Augustus has the talent, he also has the drive. Great things are expected of him, and by him as well.

"Hopefully I want to go through the NCAA competition, a mini tour, and then the PGA Tour.

"If I get my game together as well as I should get it together then I can make it to those levels.

"I'm not far from (being able) to play on the mini-tours, it's just a matter of everything coming together, and I'm finding it hard to do that."