![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Tommy-Fleetwood-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A back nine of 32 propelled Victor Perez to an opening five under par 67 and a one shot lead after the first day of the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai.<\/p>\n
Scotland\u2019s Robert MacIntyre, English past champion Matthew Fitzpatrick and South Africa\u2019s Erik Van Rooyen all posted four under par 68s to sit in second place while former Race to Dubai winners Tommy Fleetwood and Martin Kaymer, Finland\u2019s Sami V\u00e4lim\u00e4ki and England\u2019s Tyrrell Hatton posted 69s.<\/p>\n
Frenchman Perez went out in one under and quickly picked up shots on holes ten and 11 before further gains on 14 and 17 saw him get to five under, and he plans on maintaining an aggressive approach for the rest of the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the position I\u2019m in, I have nothing to lose and I have everything to gain,\u201d said Perez, who sits in sixth place in the Race to Dubai. \u201cFor me it\u2019s a \u2018go-for-it\u2019 mentality that I have to keep for four rounds. Obviously, you still have to play proper golf and hit the right shots and sometimes take your medicine, but again, I have nothing to lose, so it\u2019s a matter of making a lot of birdies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitzpatrick, who won this title in 2016 and has two additional top tens to his name, continued to play well around the Earth course as he made six birdies in his four under par round.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a good day and I felt like I played solid all over,\u201d said Fitzpatrick. \u201cIt\u2019s a strange one because I got told this course was for bombers before I first came here but I\u2019ve always found it to my liking. I think the big thing for me is the greens are always fantastic and I love putting on greens this fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacIntyre, who won his maiden title last month at the Aphrodite Hills Cyprus Showdown, continued his fine form despite a few wayward tee shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t drive it great today, so I was in a bit of trouble here and there, but we took our punishment,\u201d said MacIntyre, who began with three consecutive birdies. \u201cWhen I\u2019m in position, I\u2019m attacking pins, and that\u2019s what you’ve got to do – \u00a0you go at it. It\u2019s a golf course that I like. It suits my eye, so I\u2019m just going to try and keep doing what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy putting has come on leaps and bounds in the last eight weeks. So if you\u2019ve got the putter going, it sometimes doesn\u2019t matter where you hit it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Race to Dubai leader Patrick Reed posted a bogey free two under par 70 to sit alongside former DP World Tour Championship winners Henrik Stenson and Lee Westwood among a clutch of nine players three strokes behind.<\/p>\n
Tournament debutant Viktor Hovland carded a one under par 71, as too did the likes of Thomas Pieters, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Andy Sullivan to sit in a group of eight players four strokes back, while American Collin Morikawa, who is third in the Race to Dubai, opened with a level par 72 in his first competitive round at Jumeirah Golf Estates.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A back nine of 32 propelled Victor Perez to an opening five under par 67 and a one shot lead after the first day of the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai. Scotland\u2019s Robert MacIntyre, English past champion Matthew Fitzpatrick and South Africa\u2019s Erik Van Rooyen all posted four under par 68s to sit in second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33685,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33682\/revisions\/33685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}