Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy are both looking for a big final round at the BMW PGA Championship, as thoughts begin to turn to the Ryder Cup in a fortnight's time.
The Irish duo will both be part of Luke Donald’s European team in Rome and are looking to wrap things up in style in the final round at Wentworth on Sunday.
McIlory, who scrapped under the cut line on Friday after two indifferent opening rounds, appeared to hit his stride on Saturday with a 67 that saw him move up the leaderboard.
Seven birdies and two bogeys – both coming on par fives – saw McIlroy finish the day on six under and while he remains ten shots behind leader Lugvig Aberg of Sweden, he’s still targeting a big final round and is looking to further boost his confidence ahead of the Ryder Cup.
"It felt good." McIlroy told RTÉ Sport. "I mean I played well, give myself a lot of chances obviously got off to a great start and hit a couple of bad bogeys. But you know that's golf and I'm pretty happy, like anytime shoot five under around here is pretty good. I mean, it's obviously playing pretty easy today, but it’s never that easy.
"I'm in a sort of half decent position in tomorrow. Obviously I'd like to be closer to leaders but if I can go and shoot low tomorrow, you just never know.
"It's hard to win these tournaments and it's hard to finish down the stretch like this. So who knows what the winning score will be? I just have to keep doing my own thing and plugging away.
"Regardless of what happens tomorrow, I feel like I'm going into the Ryder Cup with quite a bit of confidence in my game. It's always a great place to be because if you're not too confident your game you can get found out. So you know I'm not going to be like that. I'm pretty happy and I'm very excited."
Defending champion Lowry is in an even better place that McIlroy and could conceivably be in contention tomorrow with a low score.
His round of 67 leaves him seven shots behind Aberg, who shot a second consecutive 66, and it could have been even better for Lowry, but for a pair of bogeys on the back nine.
Lowry was a shot behind after three birdies in the first six holes. He picked up his fourth shot of the day on the eighth to reach the turn in 31, but bogeyed the 10th after failing to get up and down from short of the green and dropped a further shot at the par-five 17th.
The Offaly man was happy with how the day went and is looking to further fine-tune his game on Sunday, ahead of the Ryder Cup.
"Yeah, it was better," he told RTÉ Sport. "I felt like I showed a few positive signs. My iron play was good, I hit some wedges really close, I drove the ball probably still not as well as I would have liked. But yeah, overall it was a it was a solid day and certainly a step in the right direction.
"It's just a matter of getting comfortable with the shots that I'm trying to hit. Like I can hit all the shots, it's just a matter of getting comfortable with it and like just really simple basic things like alignment and thought process before I step into a shot.
"I just haven't really practised a whole lot over the last few weeks, so just made a more of a commitment today to be a little clearer in my head of what I wanted to do with each shot that I played, and you know, it was better.
"I made seven birdies and feel like I'm still not really on my game.
"I feel there's a there's a really low one in me. So hopefully tomorrow I can go out there and get off to a fast start and try to improve on the score that I shot today."
