6 players within 3 shots atop AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open..54 hole results

 DP World Tour : AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open : Leaderboard

Golf is a fickle beast. Confidence is hard earned and in tough times perspective can be hard to retain, yet it can reward you when you least expect it.

Having lost his full playing rights on the DP World Tour at the end of last season, before narrowly missing out at Qualifying School, Eddie Pepperell held a share of the halfway lead at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. Christmas might just come early for the popular Englishman.

This just a week on from missing the cut at the Alfred Dunhill Championship the belief gained from his second-round 70 appears to have carried over to Mauritius.

“[Confidence] probably goes quicker than it comes back but as we who play the game all know, if you are a good player and can find something the confidence can come back quite fast," said Pepperell.

"You have just got to keep that magic as long as you can.

"It is a fickle thing. I always think confidence is the icing and the cherry on top of the cake, but it is by no means the cake.

"The more rounds of golf and period of time you can have playing well, confidence can blossom."

Pepperell said after Thursday's first round he was treating this week as a belated honeymoon with his wife, Jennifer

That confidence continued on Saturday where he posted a 3rd round 69 to share the 54 hole lead at -11 with South African Dylan Naidoo who displayed some wonderful putting and shot a superb -6 66. They will be in the final pairing on Sunday along with the Dane Jacob Skov Olesen 67 -10

Pepperell joined Naidoo at the top of the leaderboard with his final putt of the day, rolling in from ten feet on the 18th to remain on course for a wire-to-wire victory that would erase the memory of missing out on a DP World Tour card at Qualifying School last month.

"The way I’m managing my game, the way the conditions are, if you offered me that ball-striking tomorrow I would take it, weighted towards better driving, because I think I can get round here in three, four, five under par managing myself and my game well and that could be enough in windy conditions.

The penultimate pairing will be two South Africans Jovan Rebula 67 -9, Jayden Schaper 68 -8 and American Corey Shaun 66 -8.

Those 6 are with 3 shots of each other for what should end the 2024 year in a Sunday shootout.

Mathieu Wood, europeantour.com

Bryan Angus (edit)