McIlroy struggles as Westwood leads

Lee Westwood holds a one stroke lead after the first round of the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

A winner of the event in 2009, Westwood looked in good form as he made his way around the Jumeirah Golf Estates course where a good week could see him climb into the top five in the Race To Dubai rankings.

He birdied the second, seventh and eighth holes to reach the turn in 33 and his good form continued on the back nine as he birdied the tenth to move to four-under for the tournament.

His only bogey of the day arrived at the 12th but the Englishman recovered with back-to-back birdies before he picked up his seventh shot of the day at the penultimate hole.

A closing par meant he signed for a six-under-par 66 to leave him well placed in the final race in the 2016 Race To Dubai.

"This is as good as I've played for quite some time. I've found a couple of keys in different parts of my game and I've been working on them hard. It all came together today," he said.

"A 66 is a good round of golf. It didn't seem that easy out there. Some days you feel like there's a lot of birdies out there but today I think was a pretty stiff test. They took the flags away a little bit. Didn't seem like many first day flags out there and I managed my game well.

"It's a golf course I've played well on in the past and I've had quite a few good results here other than the win and played pretty well in the desert. I've been looking forward to this week.

"2009 is certainly in the top two or three performances in my career. Maybe even best performance of my career, knowing that I needed to win to beat Rory in the Race to Dubai, and I did that by six and pretty much dominated the field over the weekend. It's right up there."

Nicolas Colsaerts and Julien Quesne are a shot behind on five-under, while Sergio Garcia, Joost Luiten and Francesco Molinari are two strokes off the lead.

Quesne was one under after the 13th but four birdies in his final five holes saw him power up the leaderboard into a share of second alongside Colsaerts, who enjoyed a bogey-free round.

Race to Dubai leader Henrik Stenson had to settle for a level par round to sit one shot behind Danny Willett, who is currently second in the standings.

Stenson bogeyed the fourth before recovering the dropped shot at the seventh in a round that included 16 pars.

Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, has it all to do after a disappointing three-over 75, which included four bogeys and a double-bogey six.

The defending champion endured a difficult start to his opening round as he bogeyed the first hole and he went on to drop shots at the fourth, sixth and tenth holes. He finally got a birdie on the card at the 14th and swiftly followed up with a second only to find the edge of the water hazard on the 16th, which resulted in a double-bogey.

Shane Lowry is best of the Irish on two under, while Padraig Harrington is level par heading into the second round.

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