American Kenny Perry moved into a commanding four-shot lead as his competitors faltered in the scorching heat in early third round play at the Nedbank Challenge in Sun City, South Africa today.
Perry added two more birdies to his overnight score of 11 under while nearest challengers Sergio Garcia and American Jerry Kelly dropped a shot each to fall back to nine under.
But while Perry's big driver ruled over the hard fairways and looked almost unstoppable, there was a glimmer of light for home fans as 2001 US Open champion Retief Goosen moved up to join Garcia and Kelly with two morning birdies of his own.
Ireland's Darren Clarke has had a mixed morning so far, taking a birdie on the second before fluffing a chip shot to end up with a double bogey at the third.
To make his morning worse he bogeyed the fifth to sit on five under, leaving him eight shots off the pace.
Padraig Harrington is two over through 12 for his third round and is level par for the tournament.
The most interesting round of the morning belonged to Nick Price.
The veteran Zimbabwean opened with four successive bogeys from the second but recovered with an eagle at the ninth and a birdie on 10 to settle alongside Ernie Els in last place on two over.