sept23 britmasterssat

The big guns at The Belfry are chasing down surprise leader Mark Foster.

Mark Foster shot a 69 on Saturday and takes a two-shot lead going into the final round of the Quinn Direct British Masters. But there are six players lurking close to his ten under par 206 total.

Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood are in the chasing pack and will be going for it as the European Tour season comes to a close. France’s Gregory Bourdy shot a best of the day seven under par 65 to move up into second spot, where he is joined by Swedish trio Fredrik Andersson-Hed, Niclas Fasth and Martin Erlandsson.

Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie is another of the big names challenging, after a third consecutive round of 70 left him on six under par 210 – four shots off the lead.

Foster said: “I didn’t look at the leaderboards today and didn’t realise I had a four shot lead on the last, or the position I was in. My mental focus is something I’ve been working on, because it’s not been strong enough for four rounds often enough. As you saw today though, I don’t have a problem with being around good scores and players.

“It would be great to win, but it’s a long way from my mind at the moment. I’ll take the positives from today and look forward to coming out here tomorrow.”

Westwood battled through a bad patch to keep his hopes alive. “It was a test of my patience out there. I did lose my concentration and got frustrated after the horseshoe out on the 13th hole, and then made a bad swing on the 14th tee. It’s not good getting frustrated because the putts aren’t going in, as it will cost you shots. It very nearly did today but I was just able to regroup and got the reward of three birdies in the last four holes.”

Westwood has had three top ten finishes in his last three events, and feels he is close to claiming his second win of 2007.

an Poulter shot a spectacular 32 on the back nine. He said: “There are other winners out there but how I felt today was as nice and burning inside as I have felt for a long time. It felt good and I was happy to play golf.

“When you keep hitting to 12 feet – I had seven birdie putts from that distance – you want to keep playing. I am aggressive and looked at every pin today. I am good enough to play at every pin. Keep doing what I am doing and I will have 15 birdie putts tomorrow. Take a few of them and who knows.”

Montgomerie, seeking a 32nd European Tour win said: “It was a good round that got away from me. I shall need to shoot a 66 tomorrow or something like that, so we’ll see. But I was four shots back going into the final round in Ireland and won, so I know it can be done.”