By Kent Gray
Popcorn, check. Cold beverage, check. Calculator… thankfully someone else is doing the checking.

The European Tour’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship is suddenly different but the same. Sans fans at Jumeirah Golf Estates, save for a lucky few, the rest of us are watching the 12th edition from the comfort of home.

It’s easy to get comfortable until you try figuring out the leaderboard within the leaderboard. Thankfully the European Tour has taken care of the calculations that project where a player will finish in the Race to Dubai season given their current position on this week’s actual leaderboard. In that regard, it’s really only snacks and an internet connection you need to bring to the TV coverage.

After Thursday’s opening round, it was advantage Victor Perez. The Frenchman fired a five-under 67 on Earth for a one-stroke lead over the trio of England’s Matthew Fitzpatrick, South African Erik Van Rooyen and Scot Robert MacIntyre.

It meant Perez jumped from 6th in the standings to projected Race to Dubai champion, just ahead of Patrick Reed who started in pole position and remains on the front row of the grid after a two-under 70 for a share of 9th place.

There is, of course, a long way to go until this season is done, three full circumnavigations of Earth no less. And with 61 of the 65 players in Dubai having a mathematical shot at becoming Race to Dubai champion, we suggest you sit back and enjoy the rollercoaster ride. Calculator not necessary.

Here are eight key takeaways from the Thursday’s opening round:

Victor’s going for broke
Victor Perez mixed six birdies against a solitary bogey on the 4th. The headline-grabbing gain was a chip-in with a fairway wood from off the 14th, after he’d duffed his initial attempt. And it wasn’t the sole highlight. Check it out:

Perez, who started the week sixth in the R2D standings, has no intention of backing off Friday.

“In the position I’m in, I have nothing to lose. I have everything to gain. So for me it’s really a going-for-it mentality that I have to keep for four rounds. Obviously you still have to play proper golf and hit the right shots and sometimes take your medicine, but again, I have really nothing to lose, and it’s a matter of making a lot of birdies.”

Reed right where he needs to be
If you needed affirmation of the tenacity that Patrick Reed will bring to this four-day fight, the 30-year-old American provided it on the 18th with a dart-like wedge to set up a closing birdie.

It capped a workmanlike, bogey-free two-under 70 that sees Reed second in the projected Race to Dubai standings. There was a lucky break when a drive bounced into, and then sideways out of a bush, a Houdini escape that could just as easily have put a real dampener on his Thursday. Otherwise this was a tidy circumnavigation of Earth that left Reed nicely positioned.

Momentum is a wonderful thing and Captain America will take that into Friday courtesy of that final, first-round approach shot. Indeed, Reed’s trademark, sawn-off follow-through could become the signature move of this year’s DPWTC.

Mind you, this wasn’t too bad either:

“Quite clever that.” Indeed.

Tommy’s not so fleeting
Every year for the past four years, Tommy Fleetwood has been part of the Race to Dubai’s final sprint on Earth. Thankfully, it seems the 2017 Harry Vardon Trophy winner will again be there or thereabouts at the tape come Sunday.

Playing with Patrick Reed, Fleetwood matched Captain America’s closing birdie with a wedge shot sucked back towards the pin. Check both shots out here:

The Englishman, who outscored Reed 69 to 70, also took time afterwards to remind us of the good old days when galleries packed Earth.

Good to be back

Andrew Redington/Getty Images

Lee Westwood missed last week’s Golf in Dubai Championship with a back strain but showed no sign of discomfort in matching Reed’s 70.

The 47-year-old former world No.1 is down two spots to sixth in the projected R2D standings but has pedigree on Earth, having won the inaugural DPWTC in 2009 for the second of his Harry Vardon Trophy wins. He’s also the only player in the field to start all 12 DPWTCs at JGE so don’t dismiss the Englishman book-ending 2020 with wins in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Talk of dodgy backs, Erik Van Rooyen was forced to withdraw from last month’s rescheduled Masters so came into this week with low expectations. It proved a good recipe as he signed for a 68 to be a single shot out of the lead. The highlight was undoubtedly the double-breaker he binned from downtown on the 11th. Check it out:

Van Rooyen joined Matthew Fitzpatrick and Robert MacIntrye in a share of second place and was asked afterwards for the secret to his Thurday success.

“No secret. Hit it straight, make some putts. I don’t feel like I putted the best even, so I guess the hitting was on point.” Indeed.

Beware the Fitz

Andrew Redington/Getty Images

Matthew Fitzpatrick hit 17 of 18 greens in an opening-round 68. That’s ominous given the Englishman’s liking for Earth and, more pertinently, his prowess with the putter.

Having won on Earth in 2016, one of four top-12 finishes in five starts here, what is it about this golf course that you enjoy?  “I have no idea…It’s a strange one,” Fitzpatrick said.

“I got told it was for bombers before I ever came here [but] I’ve sort of played really well here. For me the greens are just always fantastic, and yeah, I love putting on greens that are this fast. The slopes, how fast they are down grain, I much prefer putting on those, just sort of set it on its way and you know it’s not going to miss basically.”

Interestingly, Fitzpatrick is wielding a new putter, a copy of the flat stick he’s used since his younger years after the company that made his original putter went out of business.

“Yeah, so Bettinardi, I did some work with them over the last few years, just managed to just sign with them actually yesterday. They’ve put in some really hard work for me to try to copy the SC grooves, and yeah, they’ve done a fantastic job really. They took a few goes because there was a few different things that needed changing, but yeah, the final product is fantastic.”

The field has been warned.

Earth is not flat
It was great to see desert specialist Martin Kaymer (69) and two-time DPWTC and double R2D champion Henrik Stenson (70) in the early mix.

Stenson joined Reed as the only players without bogeys on their cards. It was a feat achieved on an Earth layout with which Stenson was not entirely familiar.

You know everything it takes to win around this golf course, so why is it so tough out there for you guys today, the Iceman was asked?

“I think the breeze is certainly up a little bit more than it’s been the previous couple of days here, and then I think the fairways are definitely tighter. I mean, it’s a slightly different golf course we see this time around compared to mid-November, so thicker rough, narrower fairways. The runoffs are not what they used to be around the greens, but I think in one way that should make it play easier because the ball is going to stop closer to the pin. But just the pin positions are really tucked away in a lot of corners, and I think that will reflect on the scoring.”

Cavalier attitude
The European Tour peddled long birdie putts from Robert MacIntyre and Van Rooyen, as well as Perez’s fairway wood chip-in as contenders for shot of Thursday.

But how about Tyrrell Hatton’s escape-route decision making on 18.

Oh my. What a lucky lad.

You were obviously working on the theory that trees are 90 per cent air there Tyrrell, because it didn’t look like a very big gap?

“Well, there wasn’t really a gap, but I just couldn’t be bothered to chip out sideways,” he said after taking a six iron to the tree. “There was a tree root about a foot in front of the ball and I was kind of worried about hitting that, so naturally I would have liked to have hit a 5-iron and hit it really low, and I think it would have been fine because I did see a small enough gap there that I thought it was achievable, but obviously didn’t have the skills to pull it off on that occasion.”

Hatton did have the skill to get it up and down for a closing par and a round of three-under 69. They say you make your own luck so don’t be surprised if Hatton contends, especially if he can sort out his driver.

“Yeah, I actually started hitting the fairway, which was quite nice,” the Englishman said after returning nines of 36-33.

“It was a bit of a struggle on the front nine. It’s hard to play this golf course from the rough, and thankfully I managed to hit more fairways on the back nine and was able to be a little bit more aggressive. At the end of the day kind of happy with 69.”

Rookie wonder
Robert MacIntyre sealed 2019 Rookie-of-the-Year honours here last year, a tie for 14th leaving the left-hander 11th on the Race to Dubai, three places ahead of nearest rival Kurt Kitayama.

Now, quite extraordinarily, he has a shot at the $3m DPWTC title and becoming rookie wonder turned Race to Dubai champion after an opening 68.

“It would mean everything to win the Race to Dubai, not just to me but to the whole team,” the 24-year-old said. “But again, it’s a long, long way away. Just got to keep doing what we’re doing.

“When I put in the graft and put in the practice, my golf is good. Obviously as everyone knows, I wasn’t practising as hard [earlier in the year]. I wasn’t enjoying it as much. But I’ve got the bug back. I’ve got the right people around me and I’m just pushing on and see where we end up on Sunday.”

MacIntyre contended at last week’s Golf in Dubai Championship until a closing 72 saw him slip to a share of 19th. But he’s feeling it on the greens on neighbouring Earth where he started with three successive birdies:

“Yeah, I said it last year, I got a feel with the putter. Last week it wasn’t there, this week it’s there. The pace of the greens are up this week, so a lot of time you get downhill putts and it’s just about getting the ball on line. You don’t really have to worry about how I’m hitting it. Yeah, the putter feels great in the hands, and it’s just about trusting your line and committing to what you do, and that’s what we done today, and I managed to hole a few.”