Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship last week<\/a>. He opened the tournament with back-to-back birdies, including draining a 47-foot (14.3m) putt at the first, before picking up a third at the par four ninth to go out with a 33. He had consecutive birdies again on the back nine \u2013 at 14 and 15 \u2013 in a bogey-free round.<\/p>\nMeanwhile, McIlroy took a big first step towards capturing a seventh Order of Merit crown. The two players who still have a mathematical chance of beating McIlroy \u2013 England\u2019s Marco Penge and Tyrrell Hatton \u2013 did not have the best starts and were lagging far behind.<\/p>\n
Penge, playing alongside McIlroy, opened with a two-over 74 to be tied 46th in the 52-man field, while Hatton finished on 70 and was tied 22nd.<\/p>\n
\u201cGot off to the perfect start, making three birdies in a row,\u201d said McIlroy, who was fast off the blocks in the first three holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like that was probably one of the best approach play rounds I\u2019ve had in a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wedge play felt really sharp. Had a lot of good iron shots. I don\u2019t want to sound like I\u2019m that disappointed, but I feel like I left a few out there. I missed a couple of short ones,\u201d said the world No 2.<\/p>\n
McIlroy is playing the championship for the 15th year, and showed his comfort on the Earth Course of Jumeirah Golf Estates, where he has won three times, including last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, it was a really solid start on a golf course that I\u2019m very comfortable on and historically, I\u2019ve played very well on,\u201d said the Northern Irishman.<\/p>\n
With his closest challenger, Penge, dropping down, McIlroy felt it would work to his advantage when pairings change for the second round.<\/p>\n
\u201cI shot a really good score today and it puts me in the thick of things with three days to go,\u201d said the 36-year-old who became the first European to compile the career Grand Slam when he won the Masters back in April.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I am 100% focused on what I am doing. After a day like today, I am not playing with Marco tomorrow. I can focus even more on my own game and try to win the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim, winner of the 2018 John Deere Classic, is having a solid season. The 32-year-old, born in Seoul and a resident of Houston, won the FedEx Open de France in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am playing well and I enjoy travelling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s not a big deal these days if you are playing a golf course for the first time, because our yardage books are so good and my caddie does a great job of reaching earlier and walking the golf course,\u201d added Kim, who made five birdies in the first six holes of his back nine.<\/p>\n
The round included a terrific birdie on the 15th hole, the only time he looked like in danger of dropping a shot by smashing his tee shot left into the trees.<\/p>\n
But a brilliant wedge shot over the trees from there set up a 5-footer for birdie.<\/p>\n
Fleetwood, the FedEx Cup champion on the PGA Tour, has been living on the golf course for the past three years, and the 65 was as much a result of his familiarity as well as his brilliant run of form.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my form is because of both mental and physical work that I have done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been chipping away for a long time. We have played very consistently for a long time and now we are just having a great run. Hopefully, it\u2019s not just a great run and this is how I play golf, but we have got to see what happens in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tournament has the richest purse on the DP World Tour \u2013 US$10 million \u2013 and the top 10 players also get a share of a US$6m bonus pool at the end of the season.<\/p>\n
– With AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the season finale, Hillier sits on 1886.82 points and in 17th on the season standings. The top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10635,18239,91585,18829,6097,91582,7491,91584,2082,38117,305,18830,91583,78,16802,194,32853,5133,5971,9812,111,139,69,193,18238,58660,16189,213,1569,18835,6035,1961,208,686,6123,377],"class_list":["post-133682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-card","tag-championship","tag-couvra","tag-daniel","tag-down","tag-dp","tag-earn","tag-englishman","tag-for","tag-frances","tag-have","tag-hillier","tag-hilliers","tag-in","tag-jordan","tag-kiwi","tag-leaderboard","tag-martin","tag-need","tag-needs","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-other","tag-pga","tag-quest","tag-smith","tag-sports","tag-starts","tag-strong","tag-things","tag-this","tag-tour","tag-week","tag-while","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}