It took just one hole for Tommy Fleetwood to be dissuaded of any notion that winning the Race to Dubai would be straightforward. By close of play after the first round of the DP World Tour Championship, Justin Rose had not only applied pressure on him in brilliant fashion but also raised the possibility of winning three tournaments in succession. Fleetwood has been given evidence that his fellow Englishman may be precisely the man he does not want to have to battle for the order of merit crown.
Rose’s 66 places him a shot from the summit of the leaderboard, where Patrick Reed sits at seven under par. Fleetwood made a double bogey at the 1st and dropped another shot at the 3rd but recovered to sign for a 73 and joint 43rd place in the 60-man field. It is clear the advantage is with Rose in the bigger picture. Unless there is a Fleetwood resurgence and a stumble from the man now predicted to win the Race to Dubai, the 2013 US Open champion will prevail.
“The start was shocking,” said a rueful Fleetwood. “There’s a bit of nerves there, there’s always going to be. I’ve never been in this position before. As of right now, it is kind of out of my hands a little bit but you never know what can happen. Three days to go, that’s the luxury of four rounds of golf. I’ve got three more to go, and let’s see what happens.”
Rose has Scott Hend for company at minus six. A group of six players at five under includes Matt Fitzpatrick, the defending champion, and Paul Dunne.
“This was not really on the radar a month ago,” said Rose of the Race to Dubai crown. “That’s the perspective that I have to keep because it’s an opportunity for me. It could be easy to start to think about it now as being in my hands but I think it’s still a bonus at this point.
“There’s two things to think about this week: winning the golf tournament and winning the Race to Dubai. I know that if I do one of those, the first one, then the second one happens. You know, some weeks it happens, some weeks it doesn’t, but right now things are certainly feeling a bit easier than they normally do.”
Fleetwood did manage to reach the turn in level par and produced a stunning birdie having found shrubbery from the tee at the 11th but his general play was slack. It was also pertinent that the 26-year-old had a close-up view of Rose’s round, seeing his playing partner hole out from a greenside bunker for an eagle at the 14th while already three under. By the time the order of merit’s leading duo stepped from the last green, Rose was seven strokes ahead of his young pretender.
“I was happy to be patient no matter what happened today,” said Rose. “But also conscious that I’ve won from eight back on the weekends the last two times. That’s not really a recipe that you want to continue to follow because it’s very hard to come back and win from those sorts of margins.”
Sergio García, who has – albeit faint – Race to Dubai aspirations of his own, recorded a first round of 70. His playing partner Jon Rahm was at constant odds with camera crews en route to a 69 but took a diplomatic approach when questioned about it afterwards. “They are just doing their job,” said Rahm. “Sometimes we get irritated. As professional athletes, we try to blame other people when it’s our fault.”
Reed’s willingness to play regularly in Europe remains an endearing feature. His 65, which was bogey-free, raised hopes of a first victory in more than a year. That wait seems far too long for a player of his standing.
“The warm-up actually wasn’t what I wanted,” Reed said. “I was kind of spraying it about. Then my caddie just looked at me and reminded me, ‘Hey, you’re a gamer, not a range guy. Let’s get off to a good start, hit some fairways and hit some greens’.”
Reed duly opened with back-to-back birdies. What Fleetwood would have traded for that; he is suddenly the hunter.
