McIlroy opens World Tour Championship with 69

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Rory McIlroy started the strongest of the Race to Dubai title contenders at the season-ending World Tour Championship on Thursday, shooting 3-under 69 to lie in third place and two strokes off first-round leader Joost Luiten. McIlroy is seeking to claim the year-long award — crowning the best No. 1 player on the European tour that season — for a record-tying eighth time, and for the fifth straight year. He is guaranteed to do so with a victory at Jumeirah Golf Estates this week. The world No. 2 is second in the Race to Dubai standings behind Eugenio Chacarra, who shot 72 and was already three strokes behind McIlroy. They were in the final pairing on Thursday and McIlroy underlined his first-round superiority on the par-5 No. 18 with a 254-yard approach to 13 feet that set up a tap-in birdie, while Chacarra laid up from the rough and had to settle for par.

This excerpt comes from the named source. Read the original for the full reporting.