LUKE DONALD IN UNBEATABLE MATCH-PLAY FORM ALL WEEK

FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH WEBSITE
By KEVIN GARSIDE, Golf Correspondent
iT was not the week to run into Luke Donald. The Englishman made a runner-up of newly-minted world No 1 Martin Kaymer to claim the Accenture Matchplay Championship by 3 and 2.
Donald will have to come back next year to walk the 18th hole. He had no need of it in six matches here at Marana, Arizona.
Victory was only Donald’s second tournament win in five years but enough to take him to world No 3. As that statistic suggests, Donald has no problem trading with the worlds top ten, his difficulty has been landing the killer punch.
The subordination of Kaymer in conditions that played to the German’s strengths augurs well for a golfer widely respected but, hitherto, not feared enough.
“I have not won in America for five years. It has been a lot of sweat and tears to get this to this point. It feels great. Hats off to Martin for reaching world No 1. That’s quite an accomplishment, and makes this win a lot sweeter,” Donald said.
No need for iceman anologies on Sunday. Kaymer and Donald woke to snow covered fairways. Two hours before play started the organisers were clearing the practice range with squeegees.
Donald tweeted a photo to his followers. Mountains provided an apposite backdrop, one golfer reaching a rare peak and the other the week’s most dramatic climber.
There was ice on the range when they left it and hail the size of frozen peas as they reached the fourth. On the opening day Stewart Cink was in the greenside rubbish off the 4th tee. That is a wallop of 390 yards.
On Sunday, after a five-minute delay to allow the green to revert from white to green, Kaymer and Donald had six irons into the pin.
Donald was faithful to the template of the previous rounds, bolting into an early lead. Birdies at the second, fourth and fifth took him three clear.
Kaymer can not spell panic. Imposing the authority befitting the world No 1 Kaymer had scrubbed the deficit by the turn. Birdies at six and eight got inside Donald’s head.
A 7 by the Englishmanat the ninth was proof of that after a fat approach anchored in an unplayable lie.
Donald left the ninth punch drunk, a boxer in need of a stool. Fate obliged at the tenth, where Kaymer’s birdie putt to take the lead for the first time in the match slid a fraction to the right.
At the 11th Kaymer missed by the same margin to fall a hole behind. Sport turns on a sixpence. Donald re-established a two-hole advantage at the short 13th, courtesy of a Kaymer bogey. Luke was impregnable from there, maintaining his position of never being behind all week.
“I was trying everything I could, but even a decent round was not enough,” Kaymer said. “I was relaxed when I went to the first tee.
"It was a great feeling waking up knowing I was world No 1. I was a little tired but there is no room for tiredness in this game.
“Luke played well. I was three down after five and was thinking maybe I can get back level by 12 or 13. I managed it by the turn.
"He was in the dirt at 10 and I had a putt for birdie. We ended up halving the hole and that was my chance gone.
"He is one of the most consistent players in the world and is short game is probably the best. I used to think Phil Mickelson was great but Luke's is better.”
Kaymer will get over it. Twenty-fire years after Bernhard Langer became the first to top a formal rankings list Kaymer bookended it for Germany with his semi-final victory over Bubba Watson.
The win ended Lee Westwood’s 17-week reign as golf’s premier force. It had been coming.
Kaymer, at 26, is the second youngest to achieve the distinction after Tiger Woods, who planted his flag at the summit at 21.
He follows Langer, Seve Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam, Sir Nick Faldo and Westwood as the Europeans to reach the head of the table.
There will be no dissent in this part of the world. Kaymer is not caught in the contentious issue of majorless No 1s that dogged Westwood’s reign. This was just not his day.

SCROLL DOWN TO READ ANOTHER LOOK AT SUNDAY'S PLAY, INCLUDING THE THIRD AND FOURTH PLACE PLAY-OFF BETWEEN MATT KUCHAR AND BUBBA WATSON.