Top 40 golfers in Official World Golf Rankings: Luke Donald
1 – Luke Donald
Luke Campbell Donald is an English professional golfer who was born on December 7, 1977 at Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. Although considered an Englishman, Luke calls himself half Scottish because his father was from Stranraer in Southwest Scotland.
Luke is married to a Chicago native Diane Antonopoulos. The pair met while attending Northwestern University together. In 2006 they got engaged, and later married on June 24, 2007 in Diane's family's native country of Greece. In 2010, Donald was blessed
with a daughter when Antonopoulos gave birth to their first child, Elle Georgina.
From an early age, Luke had an interest in golf. He along with his brother Christian, used to play junior golf at Hazlemere and Beaconsfield Golf Clubs. Luke was the club champion of Beaconsfield twice, winning the championship first at age 15.
When Luke came to US to pursue his golfing career, he joined College Prospects of America, a type of resource service. Martin Laird, a fellow golfer, also employed their services; they created a resume for Luke and sent it to all the major colleges and universities
in the United States. Luke got responses from several coaches, including Wally Goodwin at Stanford University. Luke got recruited by Goodwin to join his squad but did not receive admittance to the university.
Luke turned professional at the age of 23 in the year 2001. During his first season, Luke notched up more than $1-million, becoming only the 11th rookie in PGA Tour history to achieve the feat. Luke has amassed career earnings on the PGA Tour
of over $17,000,000, as well as over €7,000,000 on the European Tour
The year 2004 saw Luke take the Omega Europe Masters and the Scandinavian Masters on the European Tour following the wins up with European Ryder Cup team victory. Later in the year, he partnered up with Paul Casey to take the WGC-World Cup for England.
He moved into the Top 20 of the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) in early 2005, and his win in the 2006 Honda Classic pushed him into the Top 10.
Luke’s Biggest win to date came in February 2011 at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship when he defeated world number 1 Martin Kaymer 3 & 2 in the final. The victory would bring him his first World Golf Championship title.
Later that year, in May 2011 Luke continued his excellent form by beating Lee Westwood, who had entered the tournament as World number 1, in a playoff to win the prestigious flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship. The victory was Luke’s fifth on the European
Tour which gave him the highest accolade in golf of becoming the world number 1 in the OWGR, knocking Westwood off the perch.
Barclays Scottish Open was Luke’s first win as world number 1, and the way the year 2011 has panned out for him, it seems that he is definitely focused to keep his winning ways and add more titles and majors to his tally to hold on to his number one spot.
Aside from golf, Luke is a quiet and reserved personality, avoiding media whenever possible. Golf however, is not his only forte, as he is an established painter at Northwestern University. Luke has been praised for his efforts with the brush which shows
that he is no one-trick pony.
Apart from golf and painting, he developed an interest in wines as well and created a line of wines called Luke Donald Collection, a brand that is slowly gaining popularity around the globe.
There couldn’t be a more fitting player to carry the flag for world golf than Luke Donald. He is a role model for the sport and a top notch professional that we can root for week in and week out.
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