Golf story by Boris Webb, Mon, 12 Dec 2005 12:04:01 GMT


For Luke Donald, this year was a series of missed opportunities until yesterday, where he came from six shots behind in the Target World Challenge held at Thousand Oaks, California to close with an 8-under 64.

He wrapped it up with a two-shot victory over Darren Clarke to match the best final ever played here in its seven year history. Earlier, Tiger Woods in 2001 and Davis Love III in 2000 also had 64s before they won. He finished 16-under 272 to earn himself $1.3 million, the biggest pay cheque in his whole career.

28 year old Donald, who celebrated his birthday, only last Wednesday, has won only one PGA tour in four years. The Englishman is a former NCAA champion from Northwestern.

In fact, when the match began, Donald was the underdog as Clarke was record in this championship was superb. Clarke destroyed his chances with bogeys on the 16th and 18th holes.

Ranked No. 13 in the world, Donald didn't make good use of the opportunities and lost at the Buick Invitational and The Players Championship narrowly this year.

After the match Donald said: “'Luckily, I played great today. Fortunately for me, the guys in the top two groups didn't play their best and let me have this one a little bit. This has been a year of `nearlys.' Luckily, I got the last one. It will make Christmas a little better.”'

Winner of the U.S. Open, Michael Campbell missed a two-foot par putt on the sixth and was not able to recover and closed with a 72 to finish four shots behind.

Clarke said: "It was obviously disappointing.”I swung it pretty poorly all day and it was going left a bit. And then bogeying two holes out of the last three was not really the way I wanted to finish.”

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods, who hosted the event, shot a 73 to tie for 14th with Colin Montgomerie of Scotland who finished at 71.

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