England’s Luke Donald moved to No. 3 to ensure Euope now boasts the leading four players in the world by capturing the WGC – Accenture Match-Play Championship in Arizona.
Donald ended a near five-year winless drought on the U.S. Tour to defeat Germany’s Martin Kaymer 3 & 2 in the final at Dove Mountain.
Donald’s last win in the States in capturing the 2006 Honda Classic, an event that begins Thursday in Florida.
To his credit the 33-year old Chicago-based Donald was never behind in any of six matches.
He went into Sunday’s final, played in bright but bitterly cold conditions, having defeated Charlie Hoffman (6 & 5), Edoardo Molinari (2 & 1), Matteo Manassero (3 & 2), Ryan Moore (5 & 4) and Matt Kuchar (6 & 5).
It also meant Donald had only played 74 of 90 holes before facing Kaymer.
Donald quickly raced to 3 up after just five holes.
But the Ryder Cup star then found himself back to all square within four holes after Kaymer birdied the sixth and eighth holes and then Donald horribly triple bogeyed the ninth.
The European pair headed down the 10th even before Donald birdied the 11th and 12th holes from where he was never headed.
“It’s hard to put into words right now what this win means,” said Donald.
“It certainly is some pay back for all the hard work I’ve done and hopefully it now it leads to bigger and better things.”
Kaymer ended Lee Westwood’s 16-week run as World No. 1 simply by making the Azizona final.
“Luke was a very tough opponent but then I just didn’t play as good as I did the last few days,” said Kaymer.
Kaymer now becomes only the second German behind legendary Bernhard Langer to top the world rankings.
Surprisingly, just over four years ago Kaymer was ranked as low as 165th.
But after victory in last August’s U.S. PGA Championship and three other European Tour wins, along with eight-shot desert storm effort in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, the 26-year old Dusseldorf player rightly in the game’s No. 1.
Europe continues to dominate the world rankings with the four top ranked players all Europeans for a first occasion since 1992.
No. 1 Martin Kaymer, No. 2 Lee Westwood, No. 3 Luke Donald and No. 4 Graeme McDowell.
Tiger Woods, who was No. 1 for a run of 281 weeks up until late last October, finds himself a lowly No. 5.
