England’’s Luke Donald not only claimed his maiden European Tour title and boosted his chances of making his Ryder Cup debut come September, the 26 year old also made a significant climb up the Official World Golf Ranking following his victory in the Scandinavian Masters by Carlsberg.
Donald’’s impressive five shot victory over home hopefuls Peter Hanson and Henrik Stenson at the Barsebäck Golf & Country Club on the outskirts of Malmö, saw the Englishman advance 12 places to World Number 51.
There was further European Tour celebration on the US PGA Tour when Vijay Singh closed with a final round 67 to hold off a strong challenge from John Daly and win the Buick Open, his fourth success of 2004 on the US PGA Tour.
Singh maintained his position as World Number Three while Daly climbed 21 places to World Number 36. Meanwhile Tiger Woods, who finished in a tie for third spot, maintained his position as World Number One and is now well placed to equal Greg Norman’’s record of a total of 331 consecutive weeks at the top, next week.
Other winners this week were Takuya Taniguchi, won the Aiful Cup on the Japan Golf Tour by a margin of two strokes, and is just outside the World Top 200 in 202nd position. On the Nationwide Tour it took a four-way play- off to decide the winner of the Wichita Open, Australian Bradley Hughes picking up the first prize from Hunter Haas, Scott Harrington and Erik Compton. Hughes is now World Number 409.
