Paul Waring admitted he was "impressed with himself" as he continued his rich vein of form to sit one shot behind first-round leaders Rory McIlroy and Tyrrell Hatton at the DP World Tour Championship.
The 39-year-old is riding on the crest of a wave after sealing the biggest victory of his career at last week's Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
That success has changed the trajectory of the 2025 campaign for Waring after he moved in pole position to secure one of the ten dual memberships for the PGA TOUR via the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex.
He sat in fifth ahead of the season-ending event at the Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai, where the Englishman is now based and is also a member at the Earth course venue.
Buoyed by playing in his "backyard", Waring carded a front nine of 32 before mixing a bogey at the 12th and a birdie at the 14th, which took him into the lead at four under alongside playing partner Hatton.
McIlroy joined the pair with a birdie of his own at the 14th before Hatton nudged ahead by picking up a shot at the penultimate hole, only for the Northern Irishman to drain a 48-foot effort at the same hole to share the lead at five under.
Waring is in sole third place after his opening 68 and he was delighted with how he conducted himself on his adopted home course on Thursday.
"Got off to a really good start. I think I was four under (after the) front nine," he said. "Obviously coming off of last week, being able to sort of come straight out of the blocks and get going again, I was really, I'm going to say impressed with myself.
"First time dealing for me with a lot of media sort of Tuesday and Wednesday, something that I'm not used to and something that hopefully I'll have to get used to, which is nice.
"But again, it takes time and energy and that sort of thing. It's my first time in a while dealing with so much of that stuff. So to be able to separate that and get on the golf course Thursday afternoon and go again, I'm really happy I was able to reset and get back into that flow state.
"I want to play like this more often, obviously, and be involved in such big tournaments more often, and it was great to play alongside someone like Tyrrell that I've known for many years. He's a quality, quality player.
"You know, just to see how he goes about his business in these situations, he just keeps going and grinding it out, and it was great to see that and inspired me to keep going."
