Julien guerrier

DP World Tour Champs: Two Frenchmen and a Dane shared the lead at five-under each as the World’s second, third and fourth-ranked players were some distance behind them at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship at the Jumeirah Golf Estates.

Denmark’s Nicolai Hojgaard, seen as one of the rising stars of Europe, reeled in five birdies between the 10th and the 15th as he made up an uneventful front nine of even par for a 72 card to join Frenchmen Matthieu Pavon and Julien Guerrier who had compiled bogey-free 67 each earlier in the day.

Already assured of a fifth Race to Dubai crown, World No. 2, Rory McIlroy held on well to get in with an eventful 1-under 71. It included a shot on Par-3 13th hole that landed in a female spectator’s lap and then he had a testy up-and-down for a par on 17th and he just missed going into the creek and then had two putts for par from the lower tier of the 18th green.