MATTHIAS SCHWAB

To win

To lead after the first round

Schwab has been the European Tour’s most consistent player over the past three months.

The Austrian has finished inside the top five in five of his last nine starts, along with a T8 at the European Masters in September.

He has also consistently started well during that run. He was joint-first at the end of round one at both the Turkish Airlines Open a fortnight ago and the European Masters.

Schwab’s yet to win on the European Tour and a victory may be beyond him in a big event like this, but it’d be no surprise if he is at the top of the leaderboard again early on.

VICTOR PEREZ

To win

To lead after the first round

Perez is in fantastic form, with three top-four finishes in his last five starts, including a win at the Alfred Dunhill Links in September.

Those results were all built upon strong starts. The Frenchman was T2 after the first round on the way to that win in Scotland and was also T2 at the end of Thursday’s play at the WGC-HSBC Champions in China earlier this month.

Perez clearly has a knack for fast starts, with T6 and T12 openers in France and Turkey over the past five weeks making it clear that this is no fluke, so he's a great option to take advantage of our first-round leader offer.

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