Luke Donald’s bogey on the third hole Sunday snapped a streak of 102 holes without a dropped shot at the DP World Tour Championship, dating to the second round in 2011.
But that bit of minutiae merely served as the backdrop for a disappointing final day in Dubai that saw the 54-hole co-leader shoot 71 and finish a distant joint third, five shots behind winner Rory McIlroy. The world No. 2 was aiming for his second consecutive worldwide title, after dominating the field last week at the Japan Tour’s Dunlop Phoenix.
“I guess it was going to happen at some point; all good runs come to an end,” Donald said of his bogey-free streak at the Jumeirah Golf Estate’s Earth Course. He also dropped a shot on the 12th hole for good measure. “I struggled to get any momentum today, and I felt a little bit flat and couldn’t get things going.”
Afterward, the Englishman revealed that he “wasn’t 100 percent physically” as he dealt with a sinus infection. He said that he would undergo surgery soon to fix the nagging problem.
“It gets all clogged up,” he said of his sinuses, “and whenever I get run down they get infected. Hopefully (surgery) will be the end of that.”