Why Can't Luke Donald Get More Love in the U. S. and from the World Golf Media?

Luke Donald is the No. 1 ranked golfer in the official world golf rankings, is No. 1 on the 2011 PGA money list, and is currently No. 1 on road to Dubai, the European Tour’s official money list. 

That feat has never been accomplished by any other golfer, not even Tiger Woods.

He won two tournaments on the PGA Tour in 2011, had an astonishing two more 2nd place and two more 3rd place finishes, plus 14 top 10 finishes in 19 starts.  He ended third in the FedEx Cup standings, but only because Bill Haas made a miraculous up and down from the pond at the Tour Championship to take the FedEx Cup and the took $10 million right out of his pocket.

After leading the PGA money list all year, Webb Simpson finished in 2nd place in the McGladrey Classic—the next to last event in the Fall Series—and slipped ahead of Donald by $360,000.  Luke quickly announced that he would play in the season ending Children’s Miracle Hospital Network (CMHN) tournament at Disney to regain the money list lead. 

The rest is history. He needed a win to meet his goal of leading the 2011 PGA money list and he got it done when he really needed to.   

By the way, Luke won two more titles in Europe, plus had nine top 10 finishes in 12 starts on that tour in 2011 and leads the Race to Dubai (R2D) by $1.3 million over Rory McIlroy.  Luke is not playing this week in the WGC-HSBC event in China, due to the birth of he and his wife’s second child, but with eight European tournaments remaining including big purse events—the Barclay’s Singapore and the Dubai World Championship—he will have plenty of opportunity to win the R2D also. So, he can still complete his goal of winning both the European and PGA money list titles in the same year. 

Here is a golfer who exhibits consistency that we all strive to achieve, at the highest level, on the most difficult golf courses in the world against the best competition the golf world has to offer.  Isn’t that worth something?  Why isn’t he the most publicized—on every golf magazine cover—most quoted and most analyzed golfer right now?

Luke Donald will win one or more majors, he is too good not to, and evidently he will need them to validate his magnificently consistent play.  For me however, he is the best and has done it the old fashioned way, he earned it.