In his four previous visits to Sun City, Donald has certainly put together enough low
rounds at the Gary Player Country Club to suggest that he has the ability to win,
especially if the course is playing tough and scoring is relatively high.
With the rough always punishing due to the summer rains in the Sun City region, his
accuracy will be a factor, but it is excellent putting – he is consistently better
than the PGA Tour average for putts per round – that should stand him in good stead.
In his past five years on the PGA Tour, Donald has played in 88 events and made an
astonishing 75 cuts, with an impressive scoring average of well under 71 during that time.
This has been the sixth consecutive year on the PGA tour in which Donald has earned more
than $1 million in prize-money and he has amassed more than $15 million in his eight years
on tour to date, a figure that includes just under $1.5 million in 2008 when his season
was frustratingly curtailed by a wrist injury that saw him miss the ‘business
end’ of the year, including the FedEx Cup.
Not so in 2009, when he secured a top-10 finish at the third FedEx Cup playoff event,
the BMW Championship in his adopted hometown of Chicago, to jump from 32nd to 28th in the
FedEx Cup standings and so earn himself a place in the season-ending Tour Championship in
Atlanta.
Early in the year, he had an injury scare during the Accenture World Match-play event,
conceding his match to South African Ernie Els in the round of 16 after aggravating the
wrist ailment that had cut his 2008 season short. However, the injury was not as serious
as he had feared and he recovered to record a second-place finish at the Verizon Heritage
(including a 65-66 weekend finish) and a final round of 67 Turnberry to record his best
ever finish (tied for fifth) at the Open Championship.
When he turned professional and joined the PGA Tour in 2002, the quietly spoken
Englishman had certainly built the type of amateur pedigree to suggest that he would be a
success in the paid ranks.
His years at university in America – he attended Northwestern – were not all
about golf, although he was a three-time All-America collegiate player from 1999 to 2001
and won the individual NCAA title in 1999. He studied for a degree in art theory and
practice and has not lost his passion for fine art, being an accomplished painter himself.
He was quickly out of the blocks and set high standards for himself with a win at the
Southern farm Bureau Classic in his first year on tour and he climbed steadily up the
world rankings before his first invitation to Sun City arrived in 2005, with additional
wins coming in the 2004 Scandinavian Masters and Omega European Masters on the European
Tour, and a World Cup win for England alongside Paul Casey the same year.
He has since added the 2005 Target World Challenge and 2006 Honda Classic to his list
of achievements.
In one of the most dramatic ever climaxes to the Nedbank Golf Challenge, Donald missed
out by a single stroke on a multiple-man playoff in 2005 that included Jim Furyk, the
eventual winner, Darren Clarke, Retief Goosen and Adam Scott. | 
