England's Andy Sullivan carded a second-round 66 on Thursday to lead by three shots at the halfway stage of the Golf in Dubai Championship at the Jumeirah Golf Estates.
Overnight leader Sullivan shot five birdies and an eagle on the seventh hole of the Fire Course after a blip on the third that resulted in his first bogey. He went 17-under for the tournament.
Only nine players in the field carded a lower round than Ireland's Niall Kearney, with his 67 moving the two-time Irish PGA Championship winner to six-under par, three strokes within the cut and 11 shots adrift of Sullivan.
Gavin Moynihan was well down the leaderboard. Despite an improved second round of 74, he finished on seven-over par.
Matt Wallace and Ross Fisher were both three strokes behind O’Sullivan in second place after registering identical rounds of 67.
"It was basically just to stay patient and give ourselves as many chances as possible," Sullivan said. "It's hard, as much as I had to work hard at staying patient today, when I was three under through nine it didn't feel as good as yesterday.
"You know you're still on the right track. I knew I was swinging it well and knew if I kept giving myself opportunities I could make a few coming in. If you told me I'd shoot 61-66, I would have snapped your hand off.
"It sounds cliche but I just stuck to my process of what I could do. It was the only thing I can control out there and it's been working. I feel like I have the golf ball in some sort of control at the moment."
Sullivan, who set a course record on Wednesday, went close to matching Ernie Els' 36-hole European Tour scoring mark of 18-under-par at the 2004 Heineken Classic, but he missed a birdie putt on the final hole.
Frenchman Antoine Rozner was tied-fourth alongside Germany's Max Schmitt and Scotland's Craig Howe on 12-under.
Meanwhile Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who won on the European Tour last week, headlined a list of six players tied for the lead after the first round of the South African Open at Sun City on Thursday.
Cormac Sharvin and Jonathan Caldwell are both five shots off the lead on level par after opening round 72s.
Bezuidenhout, who claimed the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek Country Club by four shots on Sunday, shot a five under par 67 to share the lead with three other South Africans, Matthias Schwab of Austria and the Italian Aron Zemmer.
The home players are Dean Burmester, Jacques Kruyswijk and Ruan Korb, who hit six birdies in seven holes to take the lead before a bogey on his second last hole.
Schwab was the only player in the field to hit a bogey-free round on the taxing course at the Gary Player Country Club.
