World number one enjoys a five-shot cushion at the Nedbank Challenge

LEE Westwood is on course to win the Nedbank Golf Challenge and will take a five-shot lead into the final round despite an indifferent day three at Sun City.

The world number one carded a one-under-par round of 71 to go with his flawless 64 on Friday and 68 on day one - ending on 13 under overall.

However, most of his closest rivals failed to match his effort yesterday as low scoring was hard to come by on a much more difficult day at the Gary Player Country Club.

Fellow Englishman Ross Fisher, three behind overnight in second place, went around in 73, including a double bogey on his penultimate hole that saw him slip back to eight under, alongside Tim Clark - one of just two players to shoot 68s.

Spain's Miguel Angel Jimenez and South African Ernie Els matched Westwood's 71, which helped them improve to seven and six under respectively.

Els is joined by Anders Hansen, the other player to manage a round-of-the-day 68, and Padraig Harrington after the Irishman carded a level par 72.

Speaking afterwards, Westwood conceded that it had been the most difficult of the three days so far.

His round, which was looking good after 12 holes when he had managed three birdies, then suffered a little as two fives - on the par-four 13 and par-four 17 - saw him throw away a potentially even bigger lead.

He said: "I thought it was tricky out there today, there was a bit more wind than on the other days.

"The tees were back so the holes played longer and it was pretty hot out there.

"Down that back nine I felt a little bit drained and my legs got a bit weary, it was probably just the heat.

"But to come out of it with a five shot lead is a big bonus."

Fisher suffered even more on the back nine, where he had two bogeys and a double bogey in the last five holes - the double coming when his approach to the 17th green was short and slipped into the water forcing a drop.

"It was all going pretty smoothly for around 12 or 13 holes. I was right in there. Unfortunately I then took six on the par-five (14) and then dropped one on the next.

"So I was kind of playing catch-up a bit and then on 17 Westwood pulled it into the rough and I knew I had a chance there. I was in the middle of the fairway, I thought I had a lovely shot, but then misjudged it.

"It was just a disappointing day."

Italian Edoardo Molinari suffered a huge change of fortunes after his 67 in round two and ended the day with 73 for a five-under total.

The rest of the 12-man field was made up of Retief Goosen (70) on four under, Robert Allenby (73) three under, Justin Rose (72) two under and Open champion Louis Oosthuizen (72) level par.

• Geoff Ogilvy is firmly on course to win the Australian Open after extending his lead over the rest of the field to five shots after yesterday's third round.

The former US Open champion shot a five-under-par 67 at The Lakes Golf Club in Sydney to move on to a three-day total of 16-under-par 300.

Fellow Australian Matt Jones is in second place on 11 under for the tournament after carding a one-under-par 71 while a further shot back are Greg Chalmers (66) and Alistair Presnell (67) in a share of third.