Chasing his 15th Sunshine Tour title, Botes enjoyed a seven-birdie rampage to sign for a seven-under-par 65 and tie Vaughan Groenewald for the low round of the day.

With the 36-hole bar set at 11-under-par 133, Botes (67) leads his nearest challenger Nic Henning, by five shots

"Yes, it's a five-shot lead, but it could have been better. I let a couple go, but I'm not going to worry too much about that," said Botes, who rallied with birdies at the third, fourth, sixth, seventh, 14th, 16th and 17th holes.

"It was nice to build up such a lead especially as the conditions were ideal, warm with hardly any wind."

A proven front-runner, Botes felt that he would have to produce his best form and get a good lead to help hold off the chasing pack at the Gary Player Country Club, where Saturday's final round will be contested.

"You can't fire at the pins at the Gary Player because you will just run into trouble. I will play it like how I was playing on Thursday - just hit fairways and greens," he said.

Keith Horne, Chris Williams, Trevor Fisher Jnr and Jean Hugo, the winner last week of the Samsung Royal Swazi Sun Open, all finished their rounds with matching 68s while Divan van den Heever forced his way into the group tied for third with a 69.

(RSA unless stated, par 72):

133 Desvonde Botes 68 65

138 Nic Henning 71 67

140 Keith Horne 72 68, Chris Williams 72 68, Divan van den Heever 71 69, Jean Hugo 72 68, Trevor Fisher Jnr 72 68

141 Darren Holder 71 70

142 Louis de Jager 71 71, Jaco Van Zyl 73 69, Hendrik Buhrmann 72 70, Kevin Stone 72 70

143 Louis Moolman 72 71, Reggie Adams 72 71, PH McIntyre 68 75, Vaughn Groenewald 78 65, Mark Murless 75 68, Ross Wellington 73 70, Brandon Pieters 71 72

144 Tyrone van Aswegen 71 73, Warren Abery 73 71, Steve van Vuuren 73 71, Jaco Ahlers 72 72, Dean Lambert 73 71, Adilson da Silva (Bra) 73 71, Jbe' Kruger 73 71

145 Grant Veenstra 73 72, Lindani Ndwandwe 73 72, Christiaan Basson 73 72, Nico van Rensburg 74 71, Omar Sandys 73 72

146 Neil Cheetham (Eng) 76 70, Rossouw Loubser 72 74, Greg Upneck 75 71, Bradford Vaughan 74 72

147 Anil Shah (Ken) 74 73, Neil Schietekat 73 74

148 Steve Basson 74 74, Oliver Bekker 81 67, Prinavin Nelson 75 73, Theunis Spangenberg 77 71, Michiel Bothma 76 72

Missed the cut

149 Edrich Jansen 76 73, Gerlou Roux 72 77

150 Josh Cunliffe 75 75, Thabang Simon 78 72, Tongo Charamba (Zim) 73 77, Shaun Ellis 80 70

151 Merrick Bremner 78 73, Heinrich Bruiners 73 78, Titch Moore 79 72, Peter Karmis 75 76, Doug McGuigan 78 73, Grant Muller 76 75

152 Irvin Mazibuko 77 75, David Hewan 74 78, Brett Liddle 72 80

153 Alan Michell 77 76, Henk Alberts 75 78, Chris Swanepoel 80 73

154 Darren Fichardt 76 78

155 Ryan Tipping 81 74, Andre Cruse 77 78

157 Teboho Sefatsa 81 76

158 Tsietsi Chabangu 83 75

161 Michael Dreyer 81 80

165 Bafana Hlophe 82 83

Retired: Albert Pistorius 79