Tommy Fleetwood has started the first round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in immaculate fashion, the first of the two final tournaments of the DP World Tour. With 62 strokes (-10), the Englishman equaled Sam Valimaki’s Yas Links record and was one stroke ahead of the Danish Thorbjorn Olesen and the American Johannes Veerman.
Classification
In a tournament in which the 70 best of the Race to Dubai compete – and only 50 advance to the final -, there are many ‘roosters’ in contention who are already appearing in the first places, such as Tyrrell Hatton (64), Bob MicIntyre (65), Joaquín Niemann (66), Rasmus Hojgaard (66), Rory McIlory (67), Thriston Lawrence (67) or Matt Wallace (67). The best-ranked Spaniard is Adrián Otaegui, who scored 66 strokes (-6), but Ángel Hidalgo (67), Alfredo García-Heredia (67), Nacho Elvira (69), Alejandro del Rey (70) and Jorge Campillo ( 71).
Fleetwood opened fire with a birdie and followed it up with an eagle and another birdie. “I had a great start, although I didn’t feel like I did it perfectly at the beginning and I did do better on the last nine holes. I made incredible putts, I felt like I read the greens very well,” commented the world number 10, who this year won the Dubai Invitational in January.
