Ian Poulter made the most of his early start to the BMW PGA Championship third round as the Englishman moved up the leaderboard.

The 36 year old, level par and 12 strokes behind halfway leader James Morrison overnight, played his first 12 holes in four under par.

Birdies at the first, fourth and eighth were followed by a bogey at the tenth, but The Ryder Cup star responded with consecutive gains.

As a result Poulter was up into a share of 17th at Wentworth Club, where once again the wind was expected to strengthen throughout the day.

Morrison was set to tee off at 13:40 local time with a four stroke advantage over World Number Two Luke Donald and Scotland’s David Drysdale.

Poulter parred the last three for a 69 that was the best round of the day so far, but whether his three under total put him back into contention depended on Morrison.

He resumed four clear, but that became three when he hit his second shot into sand and failed to get up and down.

Drysdale parred it, Donald started with two pars in a row and it became a four-way tie for second when Alvaro Quiros birdied the first and fellow Spaniard Rafael Cabrera-Bello picked up shots on the second and third.

Poulter said: "I played lovely - really, really nicely. The course is playing very, very tough. It's the hardest wind and it's gusting."

Ernie Els remained five under after 11 and had the chance to post a score that would almost certainly give him a chance going into the final round of an event he has not won in 16 attempts - and this on a lay-out where he collected a record seven World Match Play titles.