That’s four behind leader Sergio Garcia.
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Danny Willett has plenty of work to do to get his challenge for top spot in the Race to Dubai back on track after a hard opening day at the BMW Masters.
Victor Dubuisson, winner of the Turkish Airlines Open earlier this month, and An Byeong-hun each had seven birdies in a blemish-free round and were tied for second.
Dubuisson picked up where he left off after his stirring win in Turkey.
“I’m about 800,000 points behind Rory and Danny, so I’m going to have to win one of these last two tournaments”, Rose said before playing in Tuesday’s pro-am.
However, the 35-year-old Spaniard was 11th in the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai last week and continued that good form across the city at Lake Malaren with nine birdies and one bogey in an opening 64.
Ross Fisher of England and Lucas Bjerregaard of Denmark were another stroke back in equal-fourth. “Conditions were quite good – not much wind, a little bit of a drizzle, but other than that it was good”.
“There were a lot of papers flying around, there were a lot of phone calls, emails being sent, ” he said.
Paul Casey, who eagled the par-4 14th hole, Thongchai Jaidee, and Justin Rose were three strokes behind Garcia at 5 under, and a group of nine players was another shot back at 4 under, including Henrik Stenson, Ian Poulter, and 18-year-old Dou Zecheng of China.
The world number three will return for next week’s season finale, the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, as he bids to be crowned Europe’s number one for the second year running. “There were times when I was thinking I might be booking a flight to go home”.
“It was a unusual one last week; the game’s not felt great”, said the English world number 22 who needs to finish 28th or better this week to overtake McIlroy, but lies tied 48th after the first round.
” It is always nice to pick up a win late in the season and pick up a few points and obviously that gives me a better shot at the Race to Dubai”, the former US Open champion said.
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Fisher is now 15th in the Race to Dubai, with one event remaining after this week.
