David Mullin's hold on the TEG 5 Trophy lead had stood since the 18th hole of round one. Twenty-one holes out in front. It took him three holes at the start of round three to give it all back.

A triple bogey at the 2nd. Double bogeys at the 3rd and the 4th. Seven gross shots gone, and not one net par among them. Gregg Williams, meanwhile, made his move at the 3rd with a routine par on the par-5. It was worth two shots net against par, and it was enough to take the lead outright. He did not have to do anything clever. He simply had to keep standing.

By the close of the round Williams held the Trophy by five, a three-shot deficit overturned without visible effort. Mullin's card never recovered. A quadruple bogey nine at the 13th finished the job on the way to twelve over, his worst round of the TEG. It followed a strong second round, a sixteen-shot swing in form, and no obvious explanation. Mullin still leads the Green Jacket by fourteen. For the first time in the tournament, he is the one doing the chasing.

Round three at Boavista ended in a piece of symmetry that neither man will want framed. Jon Baker and Stuart Neumann both closed with quintuple-bogey nines at the 18th. Mirror images, right down to the identical result.

Baker's was his second nine of the day. He had already run one up at the 7th, which lends the card a certain rhythm. The rest of it was not without promise, which is the cruellest thing one can say about it.

Neumann's disaster was the end of a longer process. He bled ten shots over the last three holes: a double bogey at the 16th, a triple at the 17th, then the nine at the last. Each hole was a slightly more ambitious version of the one before.

The 18th is a stroke index 5 hole and no pushover. Even so, two nines from two different players on the same green in the same round is a rare coincidence. Neither man's history here suggests it was typical, and both have posted far better gross totals at Boavista. In round three, though, the closing hole had the final word for both of them.