Players Championship

If you were going to pick the best golfer in the world on form right now, you’d be hard pushed to look beyond Luke Donald. Six top ten finishes in seven US PGA events in 2011 is outstanding, and included a T4 at the US Masters last month. Now, as he heads to the ‘unofficial fifth major,’ he finds himself still looked over by several bookmakers who favour Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. There is very little evidence to support the Americans as better prospects than the English world number three who is 16/1 to win with Boylesports.

There is nothing to suggest that Donald has peaked for the season after some blistering early season results. His only victory of the year so far may have been in the Accenture Match Play Championship in February, but only a lipped putt denied him further glory at the Heritage two weeks ago, where he was runner-up in a play-off. Had that knife-edge result just gone the other way then we would have been talking about the Ryder Cup star as a world number one.

As competitive as the Sawgrass field always is, there are several high profile European absences that only improve Donald’s prospects further. Westwood, McIlroy and Casey are among those missing, and all feature in the world’s top seven golfers. This has left Donald, Woods and Mickelson comfortably adrift at the top of the betting. With the 14-time major winner just back from injury, and still someway from his best, there is very little for the Englishman to fear Stateside. One of the best iron players in the world, Donald appears ideally suited to the elegant Florida course. He represents decent value to win at 16/1.