Brandon Stone will take a two-shot lead into the final round of the Portugal Masters as English duo Oliver Fisher and Steven Brown look to secure their European Tour futures in Vilamoura.
South African Stone fired a third consecutive round of 66 to get to 15 under and lead the way from countryman Dean Burmester and Fisher, with Brown a shot further back on the Algarve.
Despite registering just one top-10 all season, Stone’s win at last year’s Scottish Open means he is guaranteed a European Tour card for next season, but the same cannot be said of Fisher and Brown.
Only the top 115 on the Race to Dubai are guaranteed to keep their playing privileges at the end of play on Sunday and barring a disaster Fisher — who started the week in danger at 112th — will be safe after provisionally moving up to 76th.
Brown, however, will need a good final round to force his way into the reckoning, sitting in a provisional 124th after starting the week 150th.
Overnight leader Fisher made a hat-trick of bogeys from the fifth to slide down the leaderboard but hit back with four birdies in a row from the 12th in a 70.
“When you have days where you feel like you’re not getting anything out of it, you need to get a spark going, 11 and 12 helped me out,” he told europeantour.com.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow, it should be a good final round.”
Brown was bogey-free in carding a 65 but he is under no illusions about the task ahead of him.
“I need to have such a good week to keep my card that it might have relaxed me a little bit and it’s me getting ready for Tour school and building my confidence for that,” he said. “It’s a good job I’ve got another day.”
Defending champion Tom Lewis, world number 29 Matt Wallace and a third Englishman in Eddie Pepperell were all five shots off the lead.
Collated third round scores & totals in the European Tour Portugal Masters, Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course, Vilamoura, Portugal (British unless stated, par 71):
198 Brandon Stone (Rsa) 66 66 66
200 Dean Burmester (Rsa) 70 65 65, Oliver Fisher 65 65 70
201 Steven Brown 69 67 65
202 Jeunghun Wang (Kor) 66 65 71, Haydn Porteous (Rsa) 68 65 69, Justin Walters (Rsa) 65 66 71, George Coetzee (Rsa) 69 65 68
203 Adrien Saddier (Fra) 67 68 68, Matt Wallace 67 70 66, Eddie Pepperell 67 66 70, Tom Lewis 69 66 68, Renato Paratore (Ita) 66 70 67
204 Darren Fichardt (Rsa) 66 67 71, Pablo Larrazabal (Spa) 70 66 68
205 Louis De Jager (Rsa) 63 72 70
206 Hugo Leon (Chi) 69 69 68, Kalle Samooja (Fin) 68 70 68, Jack Singh Brar 67 68 71, Joakim Lagergren (Swe) 69 71 66, Chris Paisley 69 69 68, Tomas Santos Silva (Por) 72 68 66, Kristian Krogh Johannessen (Nor) 70 69 67, Shubhankar Sharma (Ind) 67 71 68, Tapio Pulkkanen (Fin) 68 69 69, Andy Sullivan 68 72 66, Bradley Dredge 71 68 67
207 Matthieu Pavon (Fra) 72 67 68, Kristoffer Reitan (Nor) 73 67 67, Jordan Smith 69 68 70, Ashley Chesters 67 70 70, Nick Cullen (Aus) 70 70 67
208 Tiago Cruz (Por) 69 66 73, Ricardo Gouveia (Por) 70 68 70, Marc Warren 71 68 69, Jamie Donaldson 68 67 73, Guido Migliozzi (Spa) 71 68 69, David Borda (Spa) 71 68 69
209 Adri Arnaus (Spa) 68 69 72, Robert Rock 68 69 72, Liam Johnston 70 70 69, Romain Wattel (Fra) 68 72 69, Jake McLeod (Aus) 65 72 72, Alexander Bjork (Swe) 68 71 70, Martin Kaymer (Ger) 67 70 72, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano (Spa) 68 69 72
210 Thomas Aiken (Rsa) 71 69 70, Anton Karlsson (Swe) 68 72 70, Tom Murray 69 71 70, Ryan Fox (Nzl) 72 67 71, Nicolai Hojgaard (Den) 70 70 70, Min Woo Lee (Aus) 72 69 69, Jacques Kruyswijk (Rsa) 69 72 69
211 Joachim B. Hansen (Den) 69 68 74, Sihwan Kim (Kor) 66 73 72, Ross Fisher 70 69 72, Oliver Wilson 70 69 72, Niklas Lemke (Swe) 69 72 70, Adrian Otaegui (Spa) 70 69 72, Lee Westwood 68 72 71
212 Robert Karlsson (Swe) 68 73 71, Trevor Immelman (Rsa) 70 71 71, Richard McEvoy 70 69 73, David Horsey 66 73 73, Mikko Korhonen (Fin) 72 67 73
213 Sam Horsfield 67 71 75, Paul Lawrie 72 69 72, Matthew Southgate 66 73 74, Bernd Ritthammer (Ger) 72 69 72
218 Chris Wood 69 72 77
