Luke Donald has been the most dominant player in men's golf for nearly a year now, #1 since May,and although you wouldn't know it watching and listening on this side of the pond he is highly respected in Europe and around the world.
He has just won the Scottish Open with a brilliant -9 63 -19 total for 54 holes, his 3rd win of the year (WGC MatchPlay, BMWPGA are the others and of course he lost the Heritage in a playoff).
He has now been in the T10 in 15 of his last 17 events and is going into next week's Open Championship as the prohibitive favourite. "There can't be any better preparation for the Open Championship than winning on a links course the week before. I played Royal St Georges last week, I like the way it is set up and I will be full of confidence as I go down to Sandwich " he said afterwards.
Mother Nature finally relented in the area around Inverness, with only a few light showers, and although the car park is still under water, and the shuttle bus service was cancelled, a good many hearty souls showed up to cheer on this world class field.
By the way they also showed up in droves with shovels and rakes and volunteered to dig the Stuart Castle course out from the mud slides and flooding that threatened to reduce the event to 36 holes.
Earlier in the day national hero Colin Montgomerie who needed a top 5 finish to get into next week's Open Championship, saw his promising start (he was tied for the lead after eagle at the first) shattered with a double bogey at the par 3 11th then subsequent bogey's at 13 and 14. As a result he will miss playing in the Open for the first time in 21 years.
I thought Graeme McDowell would be the one to challenge his Ryder Cup colleague, but he ran up a quadruple bogey 9 on the par 5 12th when he drove it into the bracken thus ending his chances..
Top 10 leaderboard (full leaderboard click on European Tour)
1 DONALD, Luke -19 18 -9 67 67 63 - 197
2 ANDERSSON HED, Fredrik* -15 18 -10 73 66 62 - 201
T3 WIEGELE, Martin -14 18 -7 69 68 65 - 202
T3 GAGLI, Lorenzo -14 18 -6 68 68 66 - 202
T3 TULLO, Mark -14 18 -6 65 71 66 - 202
T3 COETZEE, George -14 18 -5 66 69 67 - 202
T3 COLSAERTS, Nicolas -14 18 -5 69 66 67 - 202
T3 CABRERA, Angel -14 18 -5 71 64 67 - 202
T9 COLES, Robert* -13 18 -8 70 69 64 - 203
T9 KUCHAR, Matt -13 18 -5 70 66 67 - 203
T9 DONALDSON, Jamie -13 18 -4 67 68 68 - 203
T9 HANSON, Peter -13 17 -2 66 67 - - 133
T9 LARA, José Manuel -13 17 -3 68 66 - - 134
T9 JAMIESON, Scott -13 17 -2 67 66 - - 133
Bryan Angus also on twitter@mummmbles
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