2011 PGA Championship Odds: Win or Lose, Luke Donald Will Still Be Tops on Tour

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Barring a series of unforeseen and/or catastrophic events, Luke Donald will emerge from the 2011 PGA Championship at the Atlanta Athletic Club in Jones Creek, Georgia with his stake to the No. 1 spot in the official world golf rankings still firmly intact.

Not that anyone will really notice, much less care.

Donald is about as ho-hum as they come for a guy who is supposedly the best there is on the links these days. The native Englishman has scaled to the top of the golf world with nary a PGA tour victory to his name this season.

To his credit, Donald has played extremely well on the European Tour in 2011, earning three tournament wins overseas, including his first and only as the world No. 1 at the 2011 Barclays Scottish Open.

On the PGA Tour, though, Donald has been anything but exemplary on the course. Donald put up arguably his performance of the season at the Masters, wherein he finished tied for fourth at 10 strokes under par. That strong showing came in the midst of a streak of seven top-10 finishes in PGA Tour events.

That run gave way to a bit of a bumpy road for Donald, though, as he finished tied for 45th at five strokes over par at the US Open and missed the cut at the British Open shortly thereafter.

Donald has since rebounded with a second-place finish at the WGC Bridgestone, though with all the subplots concerning Tiger Woods and Stevie Williams, no one seemed to notice.

That theme figures to continue this weekend at the PGA Championship, where Donald will show up, visor firmly affixed to his head around his spiky blonde hair, and play good, but not great, golf.

Just good enough to hang on to the top spot in the world rankings without so much as a single Major championship to his name.

—Josh Martin

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