Rory McIlroy emerges from the fog to take share of lead in Abu DHabi

Play was delayed for three hours

(Getty Images)

Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler were among a quintet tied for the lead in a fog-delayed, incomplete third round of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship as overnight frontrunner Andy Sullivan’s late triple-bogey halted the Englishman’s charge.

Poor visibility had again delayed the start of play for nearly three hours, with 60 players waiting to complete their second rounds.

That made for a strange day’s golf as the likes of McIlroy, Masters champion Jordan Spieth and world No 6 Fowler played nine holes in the morning before returning to the course late afternoon.

Four-times major winner McIlroy (right) grazed the pin from nearly 270 yards on the final hole of his second round, eventually making an eagle.

That followed a birdie on 17 – his first of the round – to catapult the Northern Irishman level with US amateur champion Bryson DeChambeau on eight under and into the tournament-leading trio alongside Sullivan, 28, who was 10 under.

Said the 26-year-old McIlroy: “I couldn’t hole from outside two feet so I thought I’d hit a couple of shots within two feet on the last two holes. It glossed over a pretty average round.”

Returning to the National course, McIlroy sunk a six-foot birdie on the second hole.

DeChambeau, by contrast, was loose from the tee and fairway and careless in his putting, slipping to seven under on the same green after a wayward four-footer.

Sullivan had seized a two-stroke lead with successive birdies at the seventh and eighth. But on the ninth – his final hole of the day – the world No 37 was left forlornly searching bushes lining the water after an errant drive. The ball lost, Sullivan’s misery deepened as his second tee shot found the rough and the next skidded into a bunker as he made a triple bogey to tumble back to nine under.