Donald flying under radar at No. 1 in post-Tiger era
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| Despite winning money titles on the European and PGA Tours, Luke Donald isn't well known. (Getty Images) |
More than a decade of dominance is tough to overcome between the ropes, much less between the ears of decidedly casual followers.
Over the past couple of months, my 7-year-old has become mildly interested in golf, dropping in the occasional dinner-table question about a game his old man annually spends roughly 20 weeks on the road covering. A few weeks back, between bites, he asked which player sat atop the world rankings.
The answer was unequivocal, given that the current No. 1 had just won the money titles on the European and PGA tours. The next day, he came home after school looking like I had mis-clubbed him or something.
"I told the other kids that Luke Donald is the No. 1 player in the world," he said. "They said I was wrong. They all said it was Tiger Woods."
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Guess news trickles down slowly when you don't read the celebrity tabloids or stand about 4 feet tall.
A smallish guy who looms large himself, Donald this week enters his second PGA Tour season in the numero uno chair at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles, where he makes his 2012 U.S. debut as the golf world buzzes about Woods' losing battle last week against Phil Mickelson.
"Tiger and Phil have been the biggest names on the U.S. tour for a number of years now ... and anytime they are paired together, I think that garners a lot of interest," Donald told CBS Sports Network this week. "That will roll over into this week."
In terms of newshole expended, they've been steamrolling everybody for most of two decades, but don't dare give short shrift to Donald. Mickelson, for all his gifts, has never been ranked world No. 1 and Woods vacated that spot more than a year ago, with no return in sight.
The third of three European players to ascend to the top slot at some point last season, Donald actually pulled away from the pack and enters '12 as the unquestioned king of his domain. Based on what we saw last year, long will he reign.
Playing this week in the shadow of Hollywood, questions have been rightly asked about his encore, whether he can duplicate the two victories he logged on each of the major tours last year, or whether he has the stuff to win a major.
"I am tweaking a few things to try to get 1 percent better," he said.
After winning the two money titles and attendant cash bonuses, he's a wage-earning 1 percenter, and then some. As for unseating Donald, ask yourself this: In an era of parity, wherein exactly one player on the U.S. tour won more than twice in a season over the past two years, who is going to stop him?
At the place they long ago dubbed Hogan's Alley, Donald is a quintessential Hoganesque player in a sea of mashers, a player who, if this were tennis, would relentlessly wear down his opposition by camping out on the baseline and rifling precision passing shots at their ankles or lob shots that land atop their visors.
Probably the best in the world at match play, Donald rarely makes mistakes, which in professional circles is a deadly combination when you already possess the best short game on the planet. Nobody made a tinier number of bogeys, on average, than did Donald in PGA Tour play last year, making exactly two per competitive round.
In terms of the objective he seeks in his own game, Woods last week used a word that as well described Donald perfectly: "Efficient."
This being the frenetically paced Los Angeles, Donald's tactical-and-practical game plan is akin to Life in the Slow Lane. Who knows, he might remake the way people look at the game, which can sorely use some more additional balance. The power players hold a huge advantage over the plinkers and dinkers, and Donald is surely closer to the latter than to the firepower of the former.
Yet with his unparalleled expertise with the wedge and putter, this bloke kills with a thousand stiletto cuts, not one bloody machete blow.
"I think the only thing that might have changed some people's perception is the fact that with my game that I was able to get to No. 1 not being a modern-day power player," he said. "I've obviously done a great job with being very proficient with the short game. That can get you a long way.
"I certainly am not the best ball-striker; I'm not the best off the tee. But with a good short game, I was able to get to the top of the world rankings. Maybe that influenced some of the way people practiced."
Donald tried to play the bomb-and-gouge game a few years ago and thinks it might have led to wrist surgery that forced him to miss a Ryder Cup. Now he leans on his unfettered strengths, which, as contradictory as it sounds, is unfiltered finesse.
Sometimes, when the line dividing the dominant players is so thin, slow and steady still wins the race. Donald became the first member of both tours to win the money titles in the same year and was voted the top player twice over, as well. Former Ryder Cup teammate Sergio Garcia, who has played both tours for over a decade himself, saluted the Englishman's transcontinental, winning twinning and called the feats "very remarkable."
"You end up playing maybe 16, 17, 18 tournaments in the U.S. and maybe 14, 15 in Europe," Garcia said of the dual membership contingent. "So to be able to do it playing that little amount of tournaments on both tours is very difficult. You have to play very, very well in the right tournaments every time, and that's obviously what Luke did."
Exactamundo, compadre. Donald had top-10 finishes in 20 of 27 worldwide starts, and there's little reason to suspect this year will be different, even after a PGA Tour offseason that included the death of his father and arrival of his second child in a span of three days.
"The birth of my daughter certainly shed some grace on the whole situation," Donald said. "I think you walk away from things like that with more appreciation for the things that you have, and it makes you a better person."
It's part of the great circle of life, which for Donald, has included moving to the States at age 19, marrying an American he met in college at Northwestern, and navigating his way to the top of his profession.
Not that it has been a painless ride. Planted at Riviera on Wednesday, as rain fell outside and the traffic in Los Angeles moved slower than a Malibu mudslide, Donald professed to missing one vestige of England.
"I miss roundabouts," he said. "Too many stoplights here. Roundabouts is the way forward. It's much better for traffic. They need a lot of them in this town."
Forget what it lacks -- do you know what they like in L.A.? Successful sequels. After last year, there's no reason to think Donald will lack for box-office impact in 2012.
If he plays the leading man long enough, even the kids will notice.
