{"id":282306,"date":"2025-11-13T18:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T18:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/282306\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T18:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T18:42:09","slug":"rory-mcilroy-tightens-grip-on-race-to-dubai-title-after-impressive-opening-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/282306\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy tightens grip on Race to Dubai title after impressive opening round"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I don’t want to sound like I’m that disappointed but I feel like I left a few out there. I missed a couple of short ones. <\/p>\n

“Overall, it was a really solid start on a golf course that I’m very comfortable on and historically I’ve played very well on.”<\/p>\n

Only English duo Tyrrell Hatton and Marco Penge can prevent McIlroy<\/a> from winning the season-long competition, formerly known as the European Tour’s Order of Merit, but they sit joint-22nd and joint-46th respectively after the opening round.<\/p>\n

McIlroy’s Ryder Cup team-mate Tommy Fleetwood sits in second, one stroke ahead on seven-under-par.<\/p>\n

The 2025 Tour Championship winner hit five birdies over a six-hole stretch down the back nine, helping him leapfrog McIlroy on the leaderboard. <\/p>\n

“I feel like it was a really good day,” said Fleetwood.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t think it was that easy. There are some really good scores out there. There were some really demanding shots on that back nine and I felt like I got into a really good rhythm.<\/p>\n

“Drove it as good as I’ve drove it all year. It was a really good driving day. I made two or three good par saves, which is key.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I don’t want to sound like I’m that disappointed but I feel like I left a few out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-282306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}