Henry Meller turned for home at Royal Óbidos level with David Mullin at the top of the TEG 7 Green Jacket. He had drawn level at the 14th with a par on the sixth-hardest hole. Mullin had twice hauled himself back to level himself, with a birdie at the 3rd and a par at the 16th. So the two of them arrived at the closing stretch in lockstep, and then only one of them left.

From the 15th, Meller went three holes without a net par. A triple bogey at the par-3 15th. A double at the 16th. Another triple at the 17th. He signed off with a double bogey at the par-5 18th, presumably for symmetry. Ten shots in four holes, and the Jacket lead went back to Mullin.

It completed a grim piece of arithmetic. Meller shot 15-under net par in Round 2 and managed -1 in Round 3, a 14-shot swing. He still leads the TEG 7 Trophy, his cushion now 15, so the loss is confined to the one competition he was actively holding. Stuart Neumann suffered the same fate on a grander scale, following his own strong second round with a 17-shot swing the wrong way. He was not leading anything, which spared him the paperwork.

Jon Baker arrived at Royal Óbidos in R3 off a second round of -7 net. He was, by any reasonable reading, a man with a Trophy challenge. The reading survived one hole.

At the par-5 2nd, stroke index 3 and one of the hardest holes on the course, he made a quintuple bogey 10. He answered immediately at the par-3 3rd with a quadruple bogey 7. Two holes. Nine shots over par. The round was finished before most of the field had settled.

He did rally in a manner of speaking, going the 7th and 8th without dropping a gross shot. It was neat, disciplined work performed over a body already cooling. Baker swung from -7 in Round 2 to +5 net in Round 3, a 12-shot reversal. In the 2014 TEG Trophy race, Henry Meller kept the overall lead and watched his advantage grow from 11 to 15 without lifting a finger.