Bjorn edging McIlroy

One bad shot from Rory McIlroy meant it was advantage Thomas Bjorn midway through their third-round battle at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic today.

Joint overnight leaders on 13 under par, Northern Ireland’s US Open champion twice nosed one in front over the opening stretch.

But on the short seventh – the hole Martin Kaymer aced yesterday – McIlroy pulled his tee shot into the water.

The 22-year-old did well to limit the damage to a bogey with a 20-foot putt, but Bjorn’s 18-footer was for birdie and a one-stroke lead, which would have gone to two if only he had not missed a three-foot chance on the ninth.

Lee Westwood finished his second-round 65 with a hat-trick of birdies and when he set off again with three more in the first four holes he was only one behind.

A mixed bag followed from the world number three, however. He failed to to get up and down from a bunker on the sixth, made a four-foot birdie putt on the next, but then drove into the desert scrub at the eighth and bogeyed again.

Two-putting from the back of the green at the long 10th brought him back alongside McIlroy in second place, while Scot Stephen Gallacher – he had a hole-in-one on the 15th in his opening 69 – and German Marcel Siem were only two behind in joint fourth spot on 12 under.