Playing partners Shane Lowry and Thomas Pieters revealed they spurred each other on as they fired matching bogey-free rounds of 67 to sit just a shot off the lead heading into the final round of the 2022 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
The Ryder Cup duo both fired five birdies at Yas Links to share the lead heading into the closing stages of round three but Scott Jamieson made two late gains of his own to sit one shot clear at 11 under at the first Rolex Series event of the season.
Lowry and Pieters will go out together again in round four alongside Jamieson as they both seek a sixth DP World Tour win, with the Irishman seeking a second Rolex Series triumph after winning this event in 2019.
"It felt good," said Lowry. "I felt comfortable.
"I had a lovely time with Thomas, I enjoy his company. We played some good golf.
"It was just a pleasant day out there. It's a nice golf course. It's tricky, a bit of wind blowing, I quite like it. I like the way it fits my eye.
"I'm looking forward to tomorrow... there's one thing in my mind, to be standing here tomorrow with the trophy again.
"It's great for the first tournament of the year to be in contention. There's been plenty of times my first tournament of the year I've missed cuts and stuff like that and it gets you off to really bad starts. It's nice to be where I am."
The 2019 Open Champion did well to make a par on the last after finding a tough spot with his second shot on the par five and revealed it all stemmed from a mix up with caddie Bo Martin.
"Myself and Bo, we were aiming at the HSBC sign but his one was 30 yards right of the one I was looking at," he said.
"New course, I thought I hit a perfect shot. I couldn't believe it came down where it did. It was a bad mistake to make because we shouldn't be doing it in that situation."
Pieters saw the funny side of Lowry's mishap and cut a relaxed figure as he looks for a first Rolex Series win.
"Shane's a lovely guy," he said. "Ask him about 18 - he got the wrong HSBC sign, it was really funny.
"We had a lot of laughs. It's just nice to play with someone, you feed off each other. He plays well, I play well.
"It was pretty stress-free. I think I missed one or two greens just like the first day.
"I'm putting well. I rolled it nicely today, just found a couple of long ones at the end."
