Golf:The Irish pair of Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell moved to the top of the leaderboard at the Golf World Cup this morning after shooting the best round of the day in the demanding foursomes format.

McIlroy and McDowell managed a four under 68 at the Mission Hills resort on Hainan island to move to 13 under overall. That was not good enough for the outright lead but Ireland now share top spot with Australia.

Having finished yesterday’s fourballs top of the leaderboard at 11 under par, Brendan Jones and Richard Green could only muster a round of 70. Scotland are in third place, just one shot back, while Spain, the US and New Zealand are all on 10 under.

“I think both of us are very pleased about the score that we ended up shooting today,” said McIlroy after today’s round. “I think anything in the 60s in the foursomes format is a very reasonable score out there.

“There is still a lot of golf to be played this week, so it will be nice to get out there tomorrow again and enjoy the fourballs, and be aggressive and make a few more birdies. I think we are very pleased with how today went and we’re looking forward to the weekend.”

Ireland started the week as favourites and McDowell is confident there is more to come over the weekend.

“Alternate shot is a very difficult format,” he said. “We struggled to find our rhythm a little bit on the front nine. Rory really putted well today, which kept things together.

“I've struggled a little bit on the greens the last couple of days, but I was happy with the way I swung the club in general today again and Rory is playing lovely.

“We’re looking forward to getting back out there into better-balls tomorrow where we can both play a little bit more aggressively and get in our rhythm better. But we’re very, very happy with that performance today. Four under par in this format is a pretty good effort.”