Luke Donald predicts continued European dominance in the sport in the year 2012
Luke Donald will be poised to defend his title at WGC Accenture Match Play Championship at Tucson, Arizona, and has predicted continued European dominance in the sport for the current season.
Comfortably settled at the number one spot on the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR), Donald carded one of the most brilliant seasons in his career.
He surged to the top spot on the leaderborad on no fewer than four occasions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Donald said during press conference ahead of the event,
“Obviously, the European Tour is enjoying a great and rich vein of form. We have the top four guys in the world rankings right now. I think a lot of the Europeans grew up playing match play as amateurs as well, and I think that helps a little bit. But these things go in veins of form, and the European Tour is enjoying a great run right now. We've had success in the Ryder Cups. We've gained some confidence from those matches, and sometimes those little things add up”.
One of the first high profile events on the PGA Tour in the current season, WGC Accenture Match Play field will be comprising of the top four players in the world.
These are: number two Lee Westwood, number three Rory McIlroy, and number four Martin Kaymer.
Another top-60 player in the world will also be part of the heavyweight field, pitched in an attempt to land the title.
Former world number one Tiger Woods will also be returning to the scenic Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in a bid to land the coveted title yet again in his stellar career.
Woods played well in last year’s episode and went all the way up to the fourth round of the Knock-out format before finally bidding farewell.
Woods’ fall from grace early in the year 2009 left the American and PGA Tour lurking in shadows when they came to the painful realisation that they have been banking solely on one player in all this time.
Woods’ trailblazing golf denied many of the sturdy European Players to bag titles on both sides of the Atlantic and his departure from the top form gave them a chance to replace Americans altogether.
Keegan Bradley, surprise winner of the PGA Championship last year, is the only American who landed a major title after Phil Mickelson’s Masters victory in 2010.
Other American players of the likes of Steve Stricker and Dustin Johnson have done well to represent US in the top-ten on the OWGR.
However, none has surged to the top-four for a considerable period of time. Phil Mickelson, also fell out of the top-ten later in 2011 and will not be part of the field at Doral next week.
Donald played total of 24 events in the previous year, carding 18 top-ten finishes, winning four events and pulling in three runners up finishes. He is poised to be one of the strongest contenders in this year’s Match Play event.
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