Thriston Lawrence sliced through the field on Saturday in the Nedbank Golf Challenge, with a stunning seven-under-par 65 at Gary Player Country Club seeing him vault 23 places into a share of third after the third round.

It was a long day for the players, who had to complete the weather-delayed second round before moving straight on to the third round. But Lawrence took a little momentum from a birdie on nine, his last hole of the second round, and got things going with a birdie on the 10^th, his first hole of the third round.

He quickly gave that shot back as he bogeyed the 11^th after missing the fairway off the tee, missing the green, and two putting from inside nine feet. But that was the sum total of his difficulties for the day as he set about playing what he called his best round ever on the Gary Player Country Club course.

He made three birdies in a row from the 13^th to the 15^th, and picked up another on the 18^th – one of only 10 in the field on a day when the closing hole seemed particularly tough. And then he birdied the first after the turn, and picked up two more on six and nine.

His 65 was two strokes better than the five-under 67 for the Belgian Thomas Detry, who held a share of the 54-hole lead with Rasmus Hojgaard at nine-under, one clear of Lawrence. Lawrence shared third with Branden Grace at eight-under after Grace grafted his way to a one-under 71.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout climbed 13 places up the leaderboard with his four-under-par 68 taking him to seven-under and a share of fifth with European Ryder Cup Captain Luke Donald. It was a bogey-free effort from Bezuidenhout, while Donald, who was somewhat surprisingly in the lead through the first two rounds, had a one-over 73.

Ricard Sterne continued his solid showing with a one-under 71 taking him to five-under and a share of 10^th.

The other South Africans appear to be largely out of things: Shaun Norris was on two-over after a level-par 72, Oliver Bekker on three-over after a 75, together with Zander Lombard who had a 73, Justin Walters carded a 74 to be on five-over, and JC Ritchie and George Coetzee brought up the rear on six-over after rounds of 76 and 73 respectively.