Rory McIlroy is hoping to take the momentum from a stunning back nine into the final round of the Open de France as he goes in search of a first title at Le Golf National.
The World Number Four has won the National Opens of the United States, Hong Kong, Great Britain and his homeland just six weeks ago when a brilliant finish gave him victory at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open Hosted by the Rory Foundation.
He required another big finish in Paris as he recovered from an opening nine of 40 to come home in ten fewer shots and sit at six under, just two strokes behind third-round leader Thongchai Jaidee.
McIlroy admits that the erratic scoring is in part due to the work he is currently doing on his swing but he also feels it is a reflection of his game as a whole this season.
"You saw two ends of the spectrum there," he said. "There was the front nine where there was nothing fluid at all about what I was doing and then the back nine when I started to get some confidence is when it went the opposite way, it went the best way it could.
"I guess it just shows a little bit of the fragile state of my game at the minute. The good's really good and the bad - it's pretty bad.
If I can just concentrate on the good stuff tonight and try and replicate that back nine through the whole 18 tomorrow, I should be okay - Rory McIlroy
The Northern Irishman got off to a ragged start with two loose swings nearly finding their way to the water and a poor chip contributing to a double-bogey on the first.
Further bogeys would follow on the third, seventh and eighth as he slipped eight shots behind then leader Jeunghun Wang. But while the South Korean had three bogeys on his back nine, McIlroy made gains on the 11th and 13th and then took advantage of some precision iron play to rattle off a hat-trick from the 15th.
"I knew what was going on, especially when Wang was four under through the first seven holes," he said. "I was like, 'he's playing a different golf course than I am'.
"I thought if I could get back to even par for the day, that was my goal after nine holes and I did one better than that, so I'm obviously very pleased.
"Any time you can shoot five under on the back nine here at Le Golf National, it's a really good score.
"It was a shame I had to do that to get myself back into the tournament but I guess it just shows you the toughness of this golf course at times.
"Combine that with just missing a few fairways and not really getting any momentum, to come back the way I did on the back nine, I think it was just more resilience than anything else."
