All twelve of Europe’s triumphant Ryder Cup team responsible for the “Miracle at Medinah” will contest this year’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in their first outing since their historic victory last year. Captain Jose Maria Olazabal will join defending champion Luke Donald and world No. 2 McIlroy as well as Graeme McDowell – who claimed his first PGA Tour title since 2010 at the

Luke has never been able to win a major and this is something that is missing from his trophy cabinet which is full of fantastic accolades but no majors. In 2012 Luke came Tied 5th for The Open Championship at Royal Lytham and St Annes in which Ernie Els went onto win. The question is will 2013 be the year to win his first major? Other well established English golfers are still to win majors such as Lee Westwood who has come so close in recent years. Luke however will not be wanting to wait much longer and will be hoping that this may just be his year to break into the major winning circle.

Luke Donald is yet to play in an event yet this season, but has recently confirmed that he will be taking part in the 2013 Maybank Malaysian Open. The Malaysian Open regarded the most prestigious event held in the country is to take place on March 21-24 2013.

An exciting game has been developed by thegolfgames.co.uk to allow golf enthusiasts to captain their team to Ryder Cup success. The game is based on statistics taken from both the PGA and European Tour’s. The equation seems to work out the results based on the stats. However to make sure that it doesn’t become to predictable it seems that there is some sort of alternative factor thrown into the mix to add some unpredictability to the game.

The game is shown below and is honestly, quite addictive as the game is not as easy as first thought.

To view the game in full size visit http://www.thegolfgames.co.uk/

It is to our pleasure to report that for the 10th week running, Luke Donald has remained at the number one spot for the 10th week running.

Despite finishing on the fifth tier last week at the British Open, Donald has managed to secure his top spot for yet another week.

Having held it since May 27, he has held it for a total of 55 weeks in his career, the fifth most all-time; leaving him six weeks short of the total held by the late Seve Ballesteros.

After Ballesteros, Donald must then defeat the amount held by many seasoned golfers including Nick Faldo (97), Greg Norman (331) and Tiger Woods (623).

On a weekly basis, Tiger Woods finds himself in second place with Rory Mcilroy trailing very closely in third.

With the rankings at hand, Luke Donald will now be holding his head up high as he heads to the Bridgestone Invitational of 2012 in August.

“Sometimes you can learn a lot by playing poorly like I did at the US Open and not living up to my expectations. I certainly was very anxious and didn’t do a good job on the mental side. So this week was a huge improvement in terms of that and I’ll use that going forward.”

The 34-year old stated that although he had played well enough in regards of tee to the green but the pro felt that he lacked the same aurora when it came down to the short play.

“It just came down to the short stick, which usually is a strength of mine. But it’s a different type of surface on these old links courses. Sometimes you just need to get on those runs where it goes in.”

Although not competing in the RBC Canadian Open today, he will indeed be stepping foot onto the green at the Bridgestone Invitational of 2012.

Luke Donald managed to finish this years British Open with a comfortable Tier 5 position whilst throughout the competition, never being closer than six shots of the lead.

Beginning the final round with 10 shots behind leader, Ernie Els, Donald finished the competition with a -1 under 69:

“It was one of those rounds where I did a lot of good things. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite hole the putts, but I’ll take a lot of positives away from this week. Certainly, I’ll leave this week knowing that my game is definitely good enough to win the majors.”

Though the form seen this weekend at The Open is a massive boost from the past couple of weeks, Donald will not have to wait too long to get back on the green when he plays the World Golf Championship at Firestone, Ohio.

Donald’s failure to win now means that his home country, England, is now sixteen years without a major tournament trophy. With that in mind, Donald will be sure to make amends at the next available opportunity.

Current world number one, Luke Donald completed the first day at The Open with a perhaps less than satisfactory par finish.

Although the finish isn’t the worst in the world, it is however stale when brought with the fact that Australian golfer, Adam Scott, finished the day with a record breaking six shots under par on his scorecard.

The day didn’t finish any better for Donald after hitting his seven-iron approach off the line to bogey the 18th. After only birdieing once on the 3rd and carding 14 straight pars on all the other holes, 18 was indeed a disappointment for the world number one.

“It was one of those days where I felt like I played pretty solid. Obviously that last hole leaves a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth, but it’s still hopefully a round I can build off and an improvement from the last major.”

Indeed, Donald will be looking to improve on this somewhat average performance as he embarks on the second day of one of the most important championships in the world of golf.

Dec 7 1977: Born

Luke Campbell Donald was born in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire in 1977. He went to school at the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe. He began playing golf with his brother at the age of 10 and won the club champion of Beaconsfield two times, with his first coming at the age of 15.

1999: His First Big Amateur Success

By the time he was 20 he had been in America for two years having taken on a scholarship at Northwestern University. He won the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Championship, whilst also breaking the scoring record of a certain Tiger Woods at the same time.

2001: Turned Professional

Donald made his professional debut at the Reno-Tahoe Open; he was allowed to compete on the PGA Tour event as a sponsor’s exception. The debut wasn’t as successful as he may have hoped though as he failed to make the cut.
He did manage to gain some valuable invitations to 6 more events on the PGA Tour that year though. He made the cut on 3 of them though didn’t achieve anything too notable.

2002: First PGA Tour Win

In March of 2002 Luke Donald achieved his first ever PGA Tour wins, although the Southern Farm Bureau Classic was abandoned due to unplayable conditions because of rain, Donald had done just enough to be in front before play was stopped.
The winnings took him into an elite list of players; he was only the 11th rookie to win over $1 million in his first year.

2003: A Solid Year

The 2003 season was much less successful than the last, and although he played pretty solid golf to make 17 cuts out of 25 he only managed two top ten finishes. His best result being a tie for third place at the Scandinavian Masters on the European Tour.

2004: Ryder Cup Victory

His results improved dramatically in 2004, winning both the omega European Masters and Scandinavian Masters, both on the European Tour. Then in the same year he made it into the European Ryder cup team, the team subsequently beat the Americans to win the Ryder Cup.
Another victory came when he partnered Paul Casey to win the WGC- World Cup for England.

2005: Inside The Top 20 Golfers In The World

By the time 2005 came around, he was showing his true consistency of results. Though he wasn’t winning too many tournaments he was regularly making cuts, this earned him a spot inside the top 20 players in the world. His best result was tying for third in The Masters, the closest he had come to winning his first major.

2006: Inside The Top Ten

Luke Donald’s rapid climb up the Official World Golf Rankings continued in 2006, mainly due to his second PGA Tour win in the Honda Classic. He won the PGA Tour title by two shots over Geoff Ogilvy. His rank would go up to that of seventh in the following year

2010: A Third European Tour Win

After four years without a title, Luke Donald finally put an end to that bad run by winning his third European Tour win at the Madrid Masters. He managed to fight off a strong performance from Welshman Rhys Davis to take the title by one shot.
He was also part of the European team that won the Ryder Cup in a close fought tournament that finished with Europe winning by just one point.

2011: Biggest Win Of Donald’s Career So Far

In February of this year Luke Donald managed to achieve his biggest career win to date by taking down the WGC Accenture match Play Championship on the European Tour. He also picked up another PGA Tour win in 2011 by winning the Children miracles Network Hospitals Classic.

Further wins in BMW PGA Championship and the Barclays Scottish Open, took him to three European Tour wins in 2011.

This was his most successful year to date, having already won one PGA Tour title and three European Tour title, he also came second in The Heritage PGA Tour. This excellent run of results led to him finally being named as PGA Player Of The Year whilst also being ranked as the number one player in the world.

2012: The Fight To Hold Onto Number One

This year has been a real tussle, particularly between Luke Donald and Rory Mcllroy for the number one position, though Lee Westwood has been pushing too. Donald did actually lose the spot to Mcllroy after not playing in the Honda Classic, which Mcllroy subsequently won.

It was short lived though as Donald won the Transitions Championship just two weeks later to reclaim the top ranking.  That made it a fifth PGA Tour victory for Donald though he again lost his ranking to Mcllroy just four weeks later.

In a topsy turvy year he reclaimed the top spot once again just another two weeks later by finishing third in the Zurich Classic Of New Orleans. Only he went on to lose it yet again to Mcllroy who finished 2nd at the Wells Fargo Championship.

He has finally managed to reclaim the number one position again in 2012 by defending his title at the BMW PGA Championship on the European Tour; this was his seventh European Tour victory to date.

On the eve of one of the most prestigious competitions in the golfing world it has been reported that Luke Donald has indeed achieved something that many celebrities around the world have only craved to do – annoy the press; a rare feat by any public person.

After winning the prestigious Golf Writers Trophy, it is reported that Donald, instead of having the speech written for him by his management team, instead chose to write the speech himself. In it is reported that the golfer made one or two rather controversial jokes about the press themselves; the very same people who voted for him to win the award.

Speaking at the Association of Golf Writers’ annual dinner at Royal Lytham, it is  understood that the speech did not go down too well, forcing Donald to explain his actions yesterday:

‘I was just trying to be light-hearted. I’ve no problem with the British press. I get on well with them and was trying to reflect that. It seems some people have got the wrong impression.’

Although this is indeed not the first time that Donald has won the award (having won it previously in 2011), it puts to mind as to whether he shall be winning the award next year. At the minute however, all of this is trivial as our eyes (and his) are now firmly fixed on The Open of 2012.

The competition ends at midday on July 31st 2012 and the winner will be announced on Twitter and either notified using Twitter or Facebook.
Good luck everyone!

Terms and Conditions:
Competition open only to people aged 18 years or over.
No employees of lukedonald.org.uk or anyone else professionally related to the competition may enter,
Only one entry per person will be accepted.
In order to enter you must still be following us on Twitter and still ‘liking’ us on Facebook by the time to competition closes.
The competition ends on July 31st 2012 at midday. The winner will be notified that afternoon via Twitter. If you do not respond within 24 hours we reserve the right to choose another winner.
One entrant will win the above prize.
The prize is non transferrable and there are no cash alternatives.