MUMBAI, December 20: The Tiger was hungry. And he struck back with a vengeance at the Bombay Presidency Golf Club course today, leaving a trail of trampled holes and seven birdies in his wake. Ali Sher is back.In the third round of the Mahindra Invitational Golf Championship, the twice Indian Open winner shrugged off his disappointment with the first two rounds, scoring a brilliant six-under par 64 to jump right back into title contention. At the end of the day, he was two-under par 208 on aggregate and three strokes adrift of the leader Feroz Ali (five-under 205).Defending champion Arjun Singh had another sub-par round of two-under to aggregate four-under 206 and left behind Vijay Kumar (one-under 209), who finished two-over for the day.The most amazing thing about Ali Sher's performance today was that he had predicted it a day before. After his even-par second round, Sher had said: ``I played good enough for a five-under score but for my poor putting. But tomorrow, I am going to burn up the course.'' He almost did.Sher had seven birdies in the first 17 holes, and then signed off in style by hitting an eagle on the 18th. Yet, it could have been even better. On his way, he three-putted twice and had three bogies. ``My putting is still not up to the mark. I missed some easy putts otherwise I could have broken the course record (Daniel Chopra's seven-under) today,'' said Ali Sher.After a brilliant start to the season - he won The Hindu Open in style - Ali Sher was having an indifferent year. ``I am capable of scores even lower than this. It was just a matter of time that I got my game going,'' he said later.After hitting birdies on the first two and the fourth holes - a 20-feet putt sealed the second - Sher missed a relatively easy 6-feet putt on the 3rd for a birdie.He hit bogies on sixth and eighth. The eighth was again unfortunate for him as he made a good retrieve after landing in the right bunker, but messed up a four-feet putt for par. On the tenth, he missed an even simpler putt and added another bogey to his total. From then on, Sher was simply unstoppable hitting birdies on 12th, 14th and the 16th before reaching the final hole four-under.On the par-5 18th, Sher's driver and 3-iron brought him to 20 feet from the pin, from where he putted for an eagle.Overnight leader Feroz Ali started as if he wanted to make sure of the title today itself. The first two holes were birdies, the second coming from an amazing 20-feet putt from the edge of green. He was three-under at the end of front nine, but should have been six-under as he missed a sandy birdie on the 8th and a eight-feet putt on seventh, which went inside when he practiced later.During all this time, defending champion Arjun Singh kept playing consistently to be two-under after the first nine, but second-placed Vijay Kumar was having an awful time as he went three-over.The roles reversed in the back nine, as Feroz started playing badly and Vijay improved by leaps and bounds. Feroz dropped four strokes in the back nine with five bogies and one birdie. Vijay bungled up in the last 15th and the 18th to end the day two-over. Arjun Singh, however, continued his steady show to finish the day two-under.Another dangerous customer on the last day will be Gaurav Ghei, who had a very good back nine of four-under after going one-over on the front nine. His three-under 67 was the second-best card of the day after Ali Sher.Leaders (after 54 holes): 205 - F Ali (67+67+71); 206 - A Singh (69+69+68); 208 - Ali Sher (74+70+64); 209 - Vijay Kumar (67+70+72); 210 - Bhandari (71+69+70), S Prakash - (70+71+69); Ghei (70+73+67; 211 - Mukesh Kumar (71+70+70); 212 - Mohta (72+68+72), Johl (70+71+71).
