DP World Tour Championship: Home is where the heart is for Rory McIlroy in Dubai

Rory McIlroy knows his way around the Earth Course at Jumeierah Golf Estates, and it looks like the Northern Irish former world No. 1 has his groove back.

With smiles firmly back in place, McIlroy blazed an unlikely path to the top of the leaderboard — due to a late tee time — in the opening round of the DP World Tour Championship, the European Tour Race to Dubai finale in the UAE on Thursday.

Six birdies overshadowed one bogey, and an eagle — including possibly shot of the week already on hole two — meant Rory leads Day 1 by two strokes.

He carded a brilliant 65 around a course he knows so well, and now goes into Friday leading a trio of Tapio Pulkkanen, Joachim B Hansen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, with Race to Dubai leader Collin Morikawa one more adrift in a tie for fifth.

“I am playing golf again,” said McIlroy after a frustrating couple of years on tour in Europe and on the PGA, which saw a drought before triumphs in the Wells Fargo in May and the CJ Cup last month. “My swing is not the same, my body is not the same as I get older, but we evolve.”

Rory was quick to praise a course he knows well in Dubai and felt he could have gone even lower.

“When you start strong, as I did, you feel you left a few strokes out there, especially on a track I know so well,” he explained. “Swings and roundabouts, I am not going to complain after a 65. It all evens out.”

McIlroy is one of many players balancing European Tour duties with those on the PGA in America, and he admits it is a tough task to do both.

“If I want to be a dual member, I have to play at least four events outside the majors and WGCs,” he told Gulf News. “I will tick the boxes early next year in Abu Dhabi and Dubai (Classic) and then we will see. I have an ambition to win both the FedEx Cup and Race to Dubai as no one has ever done that. It is increasingly more difficult to do that as we get all the new kids on the block.”

A seasoned winner Dubai, McIlroy is looking to add another feather to his cap this week, and he is in confident mood in a city he loves.

“I have such fond memories of this place as I lived here for four years and my first sponsors were Jumeirah,” he said. “I have so many friends here and I like it here. I like Dubai and I always love visiting. The jet-lag is getting tougher and tougher as I get older, but it really is a great place to be.”