Lee Westwood once again proved he is the man for the big occasion as he fired an opening 66 to take the first-round lead at the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai.
The Englishman triumphed at this event in 2009 as he won his second Order of Merit and has nine top three finishes in Major Championships in the last decade.
One of those was a tie for second at this year's Masters Tournament that helped him sit 12th in the Race to Dubai Rankings presented by Rolex coming into this week, and a season-closing win at Jumeirah Golf Estates could move him into the top five.
The 43 year old began his chase for a 24th European Tour title with seven birdies and a single bogey to sit at six under, a shot clear of Belgium's Nicolas Colsaerts and Frenchman Julien Quesne.
Dutchman Joost Luiten and Italian Francesco Molinari - both of whom won their home Opens this season - were then at four under alongside Spaniard Sergio Garcia.
Henrik Stenson entered the week with a lead of 299,675 points over Danny Willett in the Race to Dubai and he fired an opening 72 to sit a shot behind his rival in a tie for 33rd, a result that would bring him a second European crown on Sunday.
Alex Noren still has a chance of winning the Race to Dubai and he was one under, with defending champion Rory McIlroy - the only other man who can finish top of the heap - three over after a 75.
Westwood birdied the second, seventh and eighth to turn in 33 and then picked up another shot on the tenth before recording his only bogey of the day on the 12th. He bounced back with birdies on the 13th and 14th and when he decided to putt from the greenside on the 17th and made another gain, he had the lead on his own.
It all came together today - Lee Westwood
"This is as good as I've played for quite some time," he said. "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.
"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."
Quesne turned in 35 and, as he stood on the 14th tee, he was very much part of the pack before a stunning burst of scoring with birdies on the 14th, 15th, 17th and 18th.
There was no such drama for Colsaerts with birdies on the sixth, seventh, tenth and 15th putting him in contention before a stunning approach to the par five last saw him hit the summit ahead of Westwood's charge.
Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Marcus Fraser, Alexander Levy, Louis Oosthuizen and Jaco Van Zyl were in a share for seventh at three under.
