体坛英语新闻：Former No. 1 Donald gears up for major breakthrough

VANCOUVER, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A week after crashing out of the British Open where he opened with an 80 and missed the cut at Muirfield, former world No. 1 Luke Donald is determined to get his game back on track prior to next month's PGA Championship.

Speaking Wednesday prior to the start of the Canadian Open at Glen Abbey outside Toronto, the 35-year-old Englishman expressed his disappointment about not being in contention in Scotland to challenge for the one tournament he "would love to win the most."

Donald, currently ranked world No. 9, finished the British Open at 10-over par and missed the cut by two strokes. He is now winless in his 41 major appearances.

"It was a tough challenge (at Muirfield). It was fair. The afternoon rounds on Thursday and Friday went to the edge. They put some tricky pins and made the greens extremely fast, what we're not used to seeing in links golf, seeing them run out that much," said Donald who has held the World No. 1 ranking for a cumulative 55 weeks, including a 40-week stretch between May 2011 and March 2012.

"It was obviously a disappointing championship for me, but it got a worthy winner in Phil Mickelson."

Since the Official World Golf Rankings was created 25 years ago Donald and compatriot Lee Westwood are the only world No. 1 ranked players never to have won a major.

With the PGA Championship coming up at Oakhill Country Club in Rochester, New York, in three weeks, Donald, who topped the money list on both the PGA Tour and the European Tour in 2011, the first player ever to achieve the feat, said he had no shortage of motivation going into the final major of the year.

"It's always easy to be motivated. We're out here trying to win tournaments and that's motivation itself. But you're right in the fact that this time of year becomes mentally and physically quite draining. Obviously coming from the UK to here (in Toronto) to a World Golf Championship (at the Bridgestone Invitational) to another major, it's not ideal to be playing four in a row with the PGA being the fourth and then have the run of FedExCup events," he said.

"It's a tough balancing act. It's something I've had to deal with my whole career. I'm playing both tours as well. But this year, to try and make sure I'm fresh, I've probably played a couple of events less on my schedule than previous years."

At the Canadian Open, the world's third oldest national championship with a history dating to 1904, Donald, who is looking for his first win since capturing the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan in November, will be in a strong field that includes nine of the top 25 players in the World Rankings.

Among those in the field at Glen Abbey, a 7,253-yard layout, are four-time Major winner Ernie Els, world No. 6 Matt Kuchar, Brandt Snedeker (No. 7), former U.S. Open winner Graeme McDowell, past Masters winners Bubba Watson and Charl Schwartzel, Americans Hunter Mahan, Dustin Johnson and Jim Furyk, a two-time Canadian Open winner, and defending champion Scott Piercy.

"It (Glen Abbey) doesn't look too long, but the ball sits down and it's dangling. So it's going to be a big premium hitting it in the fairways this week, taking advantage of the par-fives," said Donald after playing Wednesday's Pro-Am.

"If the wind direction stays this way, the par-fives become reachable where you can make a couple of eagles to get even on 16 (516 yards) and 18 (524 yards). You can see guys hit those holes if that wind direction stays the same and as strong as it was today. So again, premium on hitting it in the fairway and these greens are very small. They're tricky. There are a lot of undulations to them. So if you can attack them from the fairway, it's going to be important."