Els in control in Shanghai

Ernie Els maintained his grip on the BMW Asian Open today despite struggling to reproduce his stunning form of the first two days.

Els took a four-shot lead into the third round in Shanghai and had increased that by a stroke at the turn at Tomson Golf Club.

The world number three had vowed to continue playing aggressive golf and he was as good as his word with a birdie at the first hole.

Birdie putts at the next two holes narrowly slid by the hole however and a bogey on the fourth gave the chasing pack a glimmer of hope.

Els, chasing a third European Tour win in 2005 following back-to-back triumphs in Dubai and Qatar, quickly made amends with birdies on the seventh and eighth from a combined distance of 12ft.

The South African had closed his second-round 62 with a brilliant eagle on the par five ninth, but this time pushed his drive into the water running down the right-hand side of the hole.

The resultant bogey five dropped him back to 16 under par, but that was still five shots ahead of Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn, who had moved up into second place.

Bjorn eagled the second and birdied the sixth and, after a bogey on the next, picked up another shot on the 10th after a superb recovery from a fairway bunker.

At 11 under Bjorn was one shot ahead of English pair Luke Donald and Simon Wakefield, and New Zealand’s Eddie Lee.

Donald had gone to the turn in 33 and then eagled the 13th while Wakefield was out in 35 and birdied the 10th.

Lee, who came into the event on a run of 10 missed cuts in a row in Asia and Australia, began the day in second place but dropped shots at the fifth and sixth before finally posting a birdie on the ninth.

Much earlier in the day, Colin Montgomerie’s slim hopes of climbing back into the world’s top 50 this week had been extinguished.

Montgomerie needed another good finish to move up from his current position of 54th – an improvement of 27 places since the start of the season.

But the former European number one could only manage a 73 on Saturday to finish level par, way behind Els who was still 40 minutes from teeing off when Montgomerie finished.

Montgomerie opened with 15 straight pars before falling foul of the 16th for the second day in succession.

This time the Scot avoided the water in front of the green but his approach plugged in a greenside bunker. After just getting his third shot on to the green, the 41-year-old three putted for a double bogey six.

At 590 yards the par-five 18th has been out of reach all week, but Montgomerie hit a superb second shot with his driver from the fairway to within 15 yards of the green to set up a closing birdie.