Golf: Nineteen-year-old Rory McIlroy totally outplayed defending champion Brett Rumford today and will take a four-stroke lead into the final round of the Omega European Masters in Switzerland.
If he takes the title and the €333,330 first prize McIlroy will become the third youngest winner in European Tour history.
South African Dale Hayes was only 18 when he won the 1971 Spanish Open, while Seve Ballesteros was just five days younger than McIlroy at the 1976 Dutch Open - the first of his record 50 Tour victories.
Rumford, joint top at halfway stage with the Holywood teenager, threw down the gauntlet with an opening 40-foot eagle putt.
But McIlroy had already hit his approach to the par five to three feet, made the putt for a matching three and by adding six birdies went on to score a 66 compared to the Australian's 73.
That took last year's leading amateur at the British Open, who began his first trip to Crans-sur-Sierre with a 63, to 13 under par and continued a remarkable turnaround in his fortunes after missing the last three halfway cuts.
His nearest challengers - all on nine under - are England's Robert Dinwiddie, French pair Christian Cevaer and Jean-Francois Lucquin, Spaniard Alejandro Canizares, Argentina's Juan Abbate and also Julien Clement, a Swiss player who does not have a European Tour card and is ranked 779th in the world.
McIlroy's professional career is still less than one year old.
He left the amateur ranks after winning a Walker Cup cap and within a month had finished third in the Dunhill Links at St Andrews and fourth at the Madrid Open.
As a result he did not have to go to the tour qualifying school, but until this week his 2008 campaign had not delivered in the way many people expected.
He is 89th on the order of merit, only six places higher than he managed in four starts last year. But winning tomorrow could more than double his money and put him 33rd.
McIlroy did, however, have a wobbly spell after turning in 32, his lead being cut to only one when he bogeyed the 10th and 12th. He badly needed a good shot to settle him back down and it came when his tee shot to the 200-yard next to three feet.
Two putts on the long 15th brought him another birdie and he pitched close at the 388-yard 17th for his last of the day.
Peter Lawrie signed for a third round 72 to be tied 23rd on five-under.
Clement is the surprise name on the leaderboard, but Dinwiddie's presence there is remarkable too.
He began the tournament with a five-over 76 which had him way down in joint
140th spot, but he has since added back-to-back 64s and now has another chance to win in his rookie season on tour.
Rumford dropped all the way to 16th, seven shots adrift, and it will take something remarkable for him to become the first player to make a successful defence of the title since Ballesteros in 1978.
-PA
