Golf - US PGA Championship update:Tiger Woods saw his lead cut to two strokes after nine holes as Pádraig Harrington and Ernie Els made their moves during the third round of the US PGA Championship at Hazeltine National in Minnesota.
Woods, who began the day seven-under and with a four-shot advantage, offset a bogey with a birdie to remain level through nine holes in windy conditions.
Defending champion Harrington and South Africa's Els both moved to five-under and within striking distance of the world number one.
Harrington sank an 18-footer at the eighth to claim his second birdie in a row while Els was four-under for the day through 12 holes.
South Korean Yang Yong-eun, Denmark's Soren Kjeldsen, US open champion Lucas Glover, Fijian Vijay Singh and Sweden's Henrik Stenson were all in a chasing pack on four-under.
Yang, hitting his approach shots close, birdied the fifth, seventh and ninth while Kjeldsen posted four birdies in his opening 10 holes.
Rory McIlroy was making great strides with four birdies and just one dropped shot in his first 10 holes to be three-under.
However, in the latter stages of his round the 20-year-old picked up bogeys at 13 and 15 to drop back to one-under.
Graeme McDowell shot 71 to finish level par and inside the top 20 heading into the final round.
World number two Phil Mickelson had a poor day.
"Even though there was a little wind it was soft and you could make some birdies," said the American after sliding to a four-over 76 for 224.
Woods's challengers know they face a daunting task trying to overtake the four-times PGA Championship winner, who has gone on to claim victory on all eight previous occasions he has held the lead in a major after 36 holes.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)