Gillis leads McIlroy by one in Florida

Tom Gillis leads Rory McIlroy by one shot at the Honda Classic in Florida.

Earlier, Masters champion Charl Schwartzel came into the title picture with a superb start to his third round.

The South African birdied four of the first six holes to join Rory McIlroy in third place on seven under par, one behind Englishman Justin Rose and American Tom Gillis.

Tiger Woods had still not given up hope of climbing into contention when he followed his two closing birdies on Friday by going to the turn in 33, but at three under the former world number one was still outside the top 20.

World number three Lee Westwood, playing with Woods for the third day in a row, made matching birdies on the third and fourth, but returned to one under and joint 36th place – with compatriot Brian Davis and Ireland’s Padraig Harrington - after missing the greens on the seventh and 11th.

Graeme McDowell, meanwhile, was joint 14th on four under after grabbing a birdie at the long third.

He was as interested as anyone in seeing whether compatriot McIlroy could win and take the world number one spot from Luke Donald.

Rose took the outright lead with a 17-foot birdie putt on the first, but failed to get up and down from sand on the next and McIlroy, having missed from 15 feet on the first and under five feet at the next, two-putted the long third for birdie to make it a three-way tie at the top.

With the wind picking up Rose went from one greenside bunker to another on the third and had his second successive bogey.

In contrast McIlroy made his second successive birdie from 22 feet at the fourth and followed it with another from 10 feet.

All of a sudden he was two in front at 10 under, although Gillis quickly cut that back to one when he also birdied the fourth, and has since gone one ahead on nine under, as McIlroy slipped back to -8.