Overnight leader Shane Lowry immediately responded to the challenge of Dutchman Joost Luiten in the third round of the ISPS Handa Wales Open.
In-form Luiten started the day one off the lead but holed from ten feet for birdie on the first and 30 feet on the third.
However, Lowry was quick to get in red figures with a birdie on the par five second before following Luiten in from 15 feet on the third to maintain his slender advantage.
At 11 under par, Lowry led by one from Luiten, with the final member of the last group - Belgium's Nicolas Colsaerts - among a group of players two shots further back on eight under.
One of those players was already safely in the clubhouse, England's Eddie Pepperell carding a superb 63 with eight birdies and no bogeys to set the early target.
Lee Westwood had also already completed his round and finished in style, the former World Number One making a birdie on the 17th and eagle on the par five 18th to card a three under 68.
Westwood had not played since bowing out of the FedEx Cup play-offs after the first event and was delighted to make the halfway cut on Friday to ensure two more competitive rounds ahead of his ninth Ryder Cup appearance at Gleneagles next week.
Pepperell, who finished fourth in the KLM Open last week after back-to-back rounds of 66, said: "I actually made a good par on two, which I suppose kick-started me because I birdied three and four. That was a nice way to start and I took it on from there.
"I played really good all day to be honest. Every aspect of my game was good, when I needed to get up and down or hole a crucial four-footer or whatever it was, then I just did that today.
"It's hard to rank it but that's as good as I've played for a long, long time. I promised my girlfriend I would try to get us a lie-in on Sunday, so hopefully I've achieved it."
The 23 year old acknowledged that the leaders would also expect to make plenty of birdies and was being proved right, Luiten drawing level with a birdie on the fifth only for Lowry to edge back in front with a gain of his own on the next.
Lowry looked set to lose the lead when he pulled his second shot to the 11th into the River Usk, but after taking a penalty drop he played a superb pitch to three feet and salvaged a par five.
Luiten was close to the green in two but was unable to make a birdie after a clumsy third shot and remained 11 under alongside former champion Thongchai Jaidee, who had gone to the turn in 33 and birdied the 11th.
France's Grégory Havret was another stroke back with five holes remaining, while England's Steve Webster had taken over the clubhouse lead on nine under after completing a 64.
Havret, who finished runner-up to Graeme McDowell in the 2010 US Open, was the first player to catch Lowry with birdies on the 14th and 15th to move to 12 under par.
But it soon became a four-way tie for the lead as Jaidee and then Luiten also birdied the short par four 15th, where Lowry came up just short of the green but took three more shots to get down.
