Brandon Stone picked up where he left off on Saturday to open up a two-shot lead as the third round of The BMW SA Open hosted by City of Ekurhuleni was completed.
Storms had led to an early end to play on all three previous days at Glendower Golf Club, with Stone playing the 12th in his third round when the players were brought off at 1525 on Saturday afternoon.
At that time, the South African was ten under alongside Englishman Daniel Brooks, who was stood on the tenth tee, as both men chased victory in the first European Tour event of the calendar year.
And the delay did not prove any distraction to the 22 year old who promptly birdied the 12th, 13th and 16th on Sunday morning to move to 13 under with a 65 and open up a two-shot advantage over Brooks.
Brooks, whose only European Tour title came at the Madeira Islands Open – Portugal – BPI in 2014 which was reduced to 36 holes due to the weather, will be getting used to early alarm calls after playing 11 holes of his second round on Saturday morning.
On that occasion he had picked up six birdies and while he could not quite repeat that success, he did pick up a shot on the 13th to sign for a 70 and move to 11 under.
Both the leaders then had a quick turnaround before the start of their final rounds, with some of the field already on course as the final group of Brooks, Keith Horne and Jbe Kruger finished.
Chris Swanepoel was one of the players back out and he was in the group at eight under after picking up a birdie on the 15th in his resumption but the finish of the day in the third round belonged to Ross McGowan.
The Englishman, who recently regained his playing privileges at Qualifying School, had been two over for his round and playing the 11th when play was ended on Saturday.
He bogeyed that hole but then made back-to-back eagles on the 12th and 13th with a birdie on the 15th to sit just five off the lead.
Justin Walters also picked up an eagle in the morning on the 15th to sign for a third round 70 to sit in the group at eight under with Horne, who recorded a level par 72.
The eagles had continued to come in the morning with Branden Grace picking up two shots on the 15th and a birdie on the last to get to seven under alongside two-time champion Retief Goosen and Christiaan Bezuidenhout.
