Rory McIlroy opens with a 67 as he looks to wrap up Race to Dubai title
McIlroy leads Thriston Lawrence by 1,572.39 points on the Race to Dubai, with Rasmus Hojgaard a further 347.89 points adrift
Rory McIlroy opened with a five-under-par 67 in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship to finish five shots adrift from leader Tommy Fleetwood, who carded a course record-equalling 62 to take a one-shot lead.
McIlroy leads Thriston Lawrence by 1,572.39 points on the Race to Dubai, with Rasmus Hojgaard a further 347.89 points adrift, meaning a win or runners-up finish would seal a sixth money list title ahead of next week’s season-ending event in Dubai.
The leading trio have been placed in the same group for the first two rounds and while Lawrence matched McIlroy’s score, Hojgaard went one better with a 66.
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“Honestly it’s nice to be paired with Thriston and Rasmus because you can sort of keep an eye on what they are doing,” McIlroy said.
“It’s been a really good year, very, very consistent. Started well with the win in Dubai and I’ve let a couple slip away as well. But I’ve had a great deal of consistency, and that’s the reason that I find myself in the place that I am.
“And I wanted to come here to the Middle East these two weeks and finish the season off the way I felt it deserves to be finished off.”
Fleetwood wielded a new putter to great effect as he made an eagle and eight birdies on a day of low scoring which saw 63 of the 70-man field break par at Yas Links.
Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen and American Johannes Veerman were Fleetwood’s nearest challengers on nine under par, with the English trio of Paul Waring, Laurie Canter and Tyrrell Hatton all shooting eight under.
Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre was another stroke back following a 64. Northern Ireland's Tom McKibbin is on four-under after carding a 68, with Shane Lowry a shot further back.
Fleetwood, who won this event in 2017 and 2018 at a different venue, was four under par for his first three holes and followed a birdie at the seventh with five more on the back nine.
“I got off to a great start (but) I didn’t feel like I swung it perfectly early on and I actually felt like I started playing better as the round got to the back nine,” Fleetwood, who received some putting tips from former players Ken Brown and David Howell during a practice round, said.
“Putted amazing. Felt like I read the greens so well. Beautiful pace control and hit a lot of good putts and started holing them.
“When you shoot a 62, obviously everything is going to have gone very, very well. Just happy to have got off to a great start.
“I always feel like I’m a good putter. It doesn’t always show. But definitely sort of the second half of this year, I haven’t putted as well or converted as many putts as we’d have liked.
“We’ve been working on that and I happened to bump into Ken and Howler on the course and we were talking about a couple of things.
“They are two of the best putters I’ve ever met and any time you’re talking to those guys, you’re always going to pick something up.”
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