Raphael Jacquelin was a little surprised but happy nevertheless to find himself nose ahead of the field after the third round of the $2.5-million Emaar-MGF Indian Masters at the Delhi Golf Club on Saturday.

But then, the Frenchman was far from happy with his game. The 33-year-old shot a level-par 72 to go on top with a cumulative total of six-under-par 210. “It's always nice to go on top of the leaderboard, but I'm little disappointed with the way I putted today,” said Jacquelin.

“I didn't hole any except the 14th hole. But the rest was really poor on the greens,” the French added. He drained a 16-footer on the par-5 14th hole for an eagle.

The 33-year-old didn't want to look far too ahead and said there is a lot of work to be done. “I don't know what the forecast is for tomorrow, but if it's windy like this, anything can happen on this course. If you lose confidence off the tee, it's going to be hard to finish the day. I'm just going to stay as casual and try to put the ball in play.

That's normally the good part of my game. I'm pretty confident in how I'm hitting the ball and hopefully I'm keeping all of the putts for tomorrow,” he said.

The French, who won his maiden title after nearly 10 years on the Tour, Jacquelin certainly knows a thing or two about being patient. He won his second title last year, completing a wire-to-wire victory at the BMW Asian Open in Shanghai.

Talking about his good show in Asia, Jacquelin said: “I don't know why, but I like to play in Asia. I think a lot of people think that the golf courses are not very good, and that's not right, because we play a lot of good courses.
I should be confident of the grainy greens maybe. I'm getting used to them now.” With Indians, Arjun Atwal and SSP Chowrasia, lurking dangerously close, and leading by just a stroke from the trio of Damien McGrane, Graeme McDowell and Jose Manuel Lara, Jacqueline will have to be on top of the game.