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By Kent Gray
As Andy Sullivan was putting the lights out on Fire Wednesday, briefly placing the golf world on an official 59 watch in the process, news of the UK becoming the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine was breaking.

They were moments a world apart in importance but brilliant all the same, and loosely connected too.

For while most of the rest of the world has collectively cursed the impacts of COVID, Sullivan used the lockdown to recalibrate a career seemingly stalled after a breakthrough three win 2015.

The 34-year-old Englishman won for the first time in five seasons at the English Championship in August, a new tournament in a six-event UK Swing born out of the pandemic.

A second win of 2020 is now a distinct possibility after Sullivan signed for blemish-free 61, the new Fire course record, to earn an early two-stroke lead at the Golf in Dubai Championship. It was some way to mark the UAE’s 49th National Day at another new, hastily arranged event in this Race to Dubai season like no other.

“COVID really changed everything for me,” said Sullivan after his lowest European Tour round to par, 11 under, eclipsed the 10-under 61 he scored at last year’s Portugal Masters.

“I had time to sit down and reflect on how I was being on the golf course. I [don’t] like to say, but I was being an idiot. It’s not nice to say that about yourself. I could think about what I wanted from the game and where I wanted to go with it. I refocused and started enjoying it again. I’ve started to play a lot better.

“Going out there and enjoying it, I know I’m giving myself the best chance to shoot a low score. Coming back to Jumeirah, I’ve always played pretty tidy here on the other course. It’s nice to get off to a flier on this one.”

Indeed. Starting on the 10th, Sullivan was six-under at the turn and capped a run of six successive birdies when the hole got in the way of a putt from another postcode on Fire’s tricky par 3 2nd. Check it out here:

Sullivan needed birdies on his last two holes to join Olivier Fisher as the second player in European Tour history in the 59 club after the Englishman achieved the feat at the 2018 Portugal Masters. It wasn’t to be although it was agonisingly close; Sullivan burned the cup with a birdie putt on the par 3 8th and hit a dart into the 9th hole, only to miss his putt for 60 on the low side.

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“It’s funny, I played the front nine yesterday and I played the back nine a year ago when we came over to warm up, you do all this prep on these courses and try and work out where to hit it. This week I turned up and clattered it around and found myself being ridiculous under par through seven or eight holes on my front nine. You think ‘here we go’.

“I changed my putting routine with Mike yesterday and it’s helped me trust my instincts more instead of second-guessing myself which really helped. The putter was extremely hot today.”

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One round, even one this low, doesn’t make a tournament but Sullivan has pedigree at JGE after pushing eventual champion Rory McIlroy all the way at the 2015 DP World Tour Championship on neighbouring Earth before finishing a shot adrift of the Northern Irishman.

He lead by two strokes from countrymen Matt Wallace and Ross Fisher and Frenchman Antoine Rozner who opened with 63s. Scots Marc Warren and Craig Howie, along with Swede Oscar Lengden were tied for 5th after 64s.