Tommy Fleetwood Ties Course Record, Leads Abu Dhabi Championship

Tommy Fleetwood successfully sank a 10-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole. The first-round leaderboard for the Abu Dhabi Championship showed: -10 T Fleetwood (Eng) -9 T Olesen (Den), J Veerman (US) -8 L Canter (Eng), F Laporta (Ita), T Hatton (Eng), P Waring (Eng) -7 R MacIntyre (Sco) Selected others: -6 A Fitzpatrick (Eng), M Jordan (Eng) -5 R McIlroy (NI), M Wallace (Eng) Full leaderboard England’s Tommy Fleetwood recorded a score of 62, 10-under-par, matching the course record and securing a one-shot lead following the initial round of the Abu Dhabi Championship. Second place is jointly held by Dane Thorbjorn Olesen and American Johannes Veerman. One stroke behind them are the English trio of Tyrrell Hatton, Paul Waring, and Laurie Canter, alongside Italy’s Francesco Laporta. Scotland’s Bob MacIntyre completed his round at seven under par. England’s Alex Fitzpatrick and Matthew Jordan finished at six under, while Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy was five under. Fleetwood commented, “When you shoot a 62, obviously everything is going to have gone very, very well.” To claim a sixth Race to Dubai title, McIlroy must place in the top two at Yas Links. This precedes the European Tour season’s concluding event, the World Tour Championship, scheduled for next week in Dubai. McIlroy, who had spent three weeks in a studio practicing with a modified swing by hitting balls at a screen, described his performance on the tournament’s first day as “felt OK”. He added, “I probably wasn’t as imaginative out there – I was hitting very straight shots.”