France's Alexander Levy made the ideal start on Thursday.
Levy carded a flawless opening 65 to finish seven under par. His compatriot Romain Wattel finished one shot behind at 6 under par, tied with Belgium's Nicolas Colsaerts and Argentina's Emiliano Grillo.
Levy offered these thoughts on his performance.
"Yeah I played very good today, bogey-free, I like that. I played very good golf. I work (over) the last few weeks on my putting and I putt well today. I think it's good for the rest of the last four tournaments."
Graeme McDowell was two shots behind Levy at 5 under par. McDowell said that he enjoyed the match despite dealing with a bout of jet lag.
"It's a first sort of long trip of the year for me and the body took a little bit of time to catch up and thankfully a couple of nights sleep and I felt much, much better this morning. The energy levels felt good and generally swung the club quite well. Coming off the Volvo World Match Play a couple of weeks ago, where I thought my game was in good shape, coming in here obviously looking for a big finish to the season and that was a nice way to start."."
Finishing behind McDowell were Siem Marcel of Germany, Oliver Wilson of England, Bjorn Thomas of Denmark, Braden Grace and Richard Sterne of South Africa, along with Jamie Donaldson of Wales, all of whom finished at 4 under par.
