Tommy Fleetwood finished with three birdies to make a late surge up the leaderboard on day two of the BMW PGA Championship and immediately set his sights on carrying that momentum into the weekend.
Rory McIlroy fired a stunning 65 early in the day to set the target at 12 under and Fleetwood was seven back stood on the 16th tee before a second chip-in of the day, sparked a brilliant run.
The Englishman hit a poor second into the par five 17th but got up and down in fantastic style before getting on the last green in two and narrowly missing his eagle putt.
Fleetwood knows how to perform on the big stage over the weekend and already has a Rolex Series win on his CV at last season's HNA Open de France.
He claimed that victory en route to winning the Race to Dubai and while he knows McIlroy will be difficult to catch in full flow, if anyone can do it, it is Fleetwood.
"It was nice to have that great finish just coming in," he said. "It was more a case of my short game massively helped me out today which is really nice.
"It's nice to use a different part of your game when you need it. At the end of the day, I stayed patient and somehow got it to eight under and not too far back now.
"I'll concentrate on my game and rest up. I've been so excited about it and it's been really busy, in a good way, but rest is that much more important this week when it's like that.
"Who knows what Rory is going to do? Obviously he's the one that everybody is going to be looking at and he's the one that's got the lead. I might go out and play terrible but I'll be trying my heart out and I'll just concentrate on what I'm doing for sure.
"Hopefully I play well. It would be nice to get off to a fast start but if not, just keep your head down and I kind of showed today with birdie on the last three holes, you can get on a run around this golf course. As tricky as it is and as hard as it is to make birdies, you can always get on a little run and keep that in mind."
