A brutal, brutal day at Muirfield.

A day of fierce competition, frayed tempers, fiery exchanges. A day that ended with Lee Westwood with the 54-hole lead in a Major for the first time since the Masters of 2010, but a day when he also felt the hot breath of a host of rivals on his neck.

None closer than Tiger Woods. The man with 14 Majors to his name sits two shots off the lead in a tie for second place with Hunter Mahan, but it is Mahan – who posted his score first – who will join Westwood in the final group today.

That, at least, puts history on Westwood's side. Woods has never won a Major when not in the last pairing, a matter that has prompted suggestions that he is uncomfortable giving chase. Westwood, though, has a different monkey on his back. He has never won a Major at all.

Goodness knows, he has been close often enough. In 18 years on the Majors circuit he has accumulated 15 top-10 finishes. In seven of those he was in the top three. In some cases, he has made up ground to get there; in others he has fallen back. He has been anything but a one-dimensional loser.

If Westwood has had a consistent failing it has been on the putting surface. That background has lent a certain intrigue to his performance here at Muirfield, a suspicion that this really could be his tournament after all. Westwood has single-putted more greens than any other player in the field this week, a statistic that would have been almost inconceivable this time last year.

Significantly, it was two putts that gave his third round momentum. The first was at the par-five fifth when, after twice using his driver to reach the green in two, he curled the ball into the hole from 25 yards for an eagle.

Then, at the par-three 16th, where a leaked tee shot, a messy escape from the rough and weak first putt had left him 15 feet from the cup, he rammed home the ball to keep himself level with Woods.

The overnight advantage was bought at the following hole, where Woods hit two weak shots up the fairway, found a cross-bunker and ended up carding a bogey five. Westwood, in stark and possibly telling contrast, sublimely played the hole, grabbed a birdie and the lead he would maintain with a calm par at the finish.

"I've had lots of chances," said Westwood of his Majors record to date. "Sometimes I've played well and at other times not so well.

"So even though I haven't won a Major, I know what it takes to win one. It's just a case of going out there tomorrow and having the confidence in my game, which I've got. I could have won four with just the right things going my way. Those are the things you feed off. You try to learn from the things you did wrong, and change them."

Westwood suggested that playing with Woods had been more energising than daunting. "I tend to feed off how good a player he is," he said.

Mahan is not exactly an unknown quantity, and his fourth-place finish at the US Open last month suggested form that was only confirmed by his round of 68, so it will be fascinating to watch how the two men work off each other today.

The penultimate group of Woods and Adam Scott is pretty decent box office as well. Scott matched Westwood's round of 70 to leave him one shot shy of the mark that Woods and Mahan set. The Australian's victory at the Masters ought to have buried all doubts raised by his meltdown at Lytham last year, but there is no question that he feels he has unfinished Open business to deal with.

Woods doesn't mind piling on a bit of psychological pressure, though. Just in case anyone was in danger of forgetting, he was happy to offer a reminder of his own Majors record.

"I've got 14 of these things," he smiled, cleverly omitting to mention that he has not collected one since 2008. "I know what it takes to win it. But Lee has won tournaments all over the world so we are going to go out there and compete and play.

"But it's not just us two. There's a bunch of guys who have a chance to win this tournament. All of us need to really play well to have a chance."

Hideki Matsuyama might have been among those contenders as well, but the Japanese 21-year-old's prospects suffered a dreadful blow when he picked up a one-shot penalty for slow play. The sanction was imposed by David Probyn, a senior and hugely experienced European Tour official, and it was the first time the punishment had been applied at The Open since it was given to England's Andrew Willey at Troon in 2004.

It was probably overdue in a tournament that has been almost glacial at times, but Matsuyama's playing partner, Johnson Wagner, was furious about it. "A little bit of judgment needs to be used," said the American.

"I pleaded in the scoring area for five minutes. I let the official know about it as gentlemanly as I could, but it infuriated me that he got the penalty. If they had tried to penalise me I would have gone ballistic."

It was not the only penalty controversy of the day. Scotland's Martin Laird had one shot added for a procedural error when he failed to tell the correct official that he was moving his ball to identify it. The incident happened early in Laird's ugly round of 81. All things considered, it was probably not the worst thing that happened to him yesterday.