Singh and Harrington provide early excitement

Vijay Singh and Padraig Harrington provided a spectacular start to the third round of the Masters today – as Justin Rose tried to deal with the inevitable nerves.

Having survived the halfway cut with nothing to spare on four over par, Singh and Harrington were paired together for the third day running and were the first to tee off.

World number two Singh instantly hit his approach to four feet on the 435-yard first, but the fireworks really came on the long second.

Just through the green in two, he had almost 50 yards to the flag and rather than playing a chip-and-run he elected to fly the ball most of the way with spin.

It checked on its second bounce and trickled into the cup on its last roll. Eagle three and three under for the first two holes. The Fijian nearly made that four under for three, his 12-foot birdie attempt at the next stopping in the jaws.

Harrington, meanwhile, had people wondering how on earth he managed to play the first two in one under.

At the first he pushed his drive behind a tree and in playing his next his club went into the trunk. The ball came up just short of the green and as he walked forward the Dubliner was inspecting the club to see if he had mis-shapen it.

A 20-foot putt salvaged his par and on the 575-yard second he went right again into the fairway bunker, then flew into the crowd 80 yards short right of the green.

Harrington played a superb pitch to 15 feet, however, and made the birdie putt.

He also missed a chance on the third, in his case from eight feet, and both then parred the difficult fourth.

At one over, Singh had risen to joint ninth and at three over Harrington was 26th.

Only 44 players – the absolute minimum – had qualified for the final 36 holes and 43 of them had one thing in mind – closing the gap on overnight leader Rose.

The 23-year-old from Hampshire was two in front after his opening 67 and still two ahead after adding a 71.

Fellow Europeans Alex Cejka and Jose Maria Olazabal, the 1994 and 1999 champion, were joint second at four under, with world number eight Phil Mickelson and South Korean KJ Choi three under.

Tiger Woods, nine behind at the end of the first day, had cut that to six with a second-round 69.