Danny Willett wants to take The Race to Dubai right down to the wire as he attempts to overtake Rory McIlroy at the top of the standings.
The Englishman's victory in the season-opening Nedbank Golf Challenge saw him take top spot in The Race to Dubai and he has been in the top two ever since with only McIlroy able to catch him over the course of the season.
The World Number Three extended his lead to 399,385 points at the Turkish Airlines Open but with lots of points to play for in The Final Series, Willett could overturn that deficit this week at the World Golf Championships - HSBC Champions.
He got off to a good start with an opening 65 that was three shots better than his rival, and the 28 year old is hoping to still be in touch at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship.
"We've not dropped out of the top two on the Order of Merit all year," he said. "I suppose when you win Nedbank, that's a pretty good leapfrog on everyone at the beginning of the season.
"It's been nice to be up there. I think Rory overtook us somewhere in the middle and we've been trying to claw our way back ever since.
It's two and a half weeks left to try and claw a little more back - Danny Willett
"We played pretty nicely last week, didn't lose too much ground and again this week, you have to put yourself somewhere near and see what happens.
"I said, 'if you can be within touching distance going into Dubai, Dubai could be pretty interesting'.
"If you can do it, great. If you don't, you've been up there and it's obviously been nice being up there and trying to compete for it.
"Yeah it would be nice come Sunday in Dubai."
McIlroy has been suffering with food poisoning in Shanghai, forcing him to sit out Wednesday's pro-am, and the Northern Irishman was pleased to record a 68 in the first round.
"It was probably a little better than I was expecting out there to be honest," he said. "The one thing, when I was hitting balls this morning on the range, I had not been out of bed for basically 48 hours, so I was really stiff. Like I was really, really stiff. I needed to loosen up quite a lot.
"But whenever I got out there, I felt pretty good.
"Thankfully it was a decent start, and now I'm going to try to just get into the tournament.
"I felt like I played okay. Tee-to-green was pretty good. I'm disappointed I missed three good chances coming in there on the front nine and didn't quite capitalise on those.
"So it was a score that I thought could have been a lot better but considering the position I was in this time yesterday, it's not a bad start."
