Luke Donald was once portrayed as everything wrong with the modern golfer. How times change.
Mark Kendall looks at Luke Donald's transformation into the world's undisputed number one golfer
A couple of years back Luke Donald was held up as an example of everything that was wrong with the modern golfer.
As Tiger Woods, at the peak of his powers, dominated all before him, racking up win after win, major after major, Donald was painted as his antithesis - under-motivated, overpaid and satisfied with multi-million dollar mediocrity.
Indeed, his name became synonymous with the concept of gravy train-riding golfing fat cats thanks to one American journalist.
Terming it the "Luke Donald Disease", Barker Davis wrote: "Your man from Hemel Hempstead is the personification of what's wrong with professional golf on both sides of the Atlantic. In his eight-plus years, Donald has won four third-tier events (two each on the PGA and European Tours), made a minor rustle in one major (T3 at 2006 US PGA) and somehow collected over $15 million in prize money for such an indifferent effort.
"Donald isn't a bad guy. In fact, he's quite a pleasant fellow. He just isn't a driven one. And it's easy to understand why. Between his career earnings and cushy endorsement deals with Ralph Lauren and Mizuno, Donald has become a very wealthy man for a player with just four unremarkable victories on his resume. And as a result, the Donald some once labelled the "next Faldo" now looks more like the next Howard Clark."
Davis' beef at the time was that Donald did not care enough about winning, especially winning the big tournaments.
Too happy to pick up fat cheques without testing himself, too happy to embellish his CV with top-10 finishes that owed more to futile late surges than serious challenges, too happy to float around the world's top-20 rather than threaten those at the very top - Donald, he argued, had all the talent but none of the desire or ambition.
It always seemed unnecessarily harsh and provocative to single out the Englishman, even more so when one remembers it came at a time (in 2009) when Donald was still looking to regain full confidence and fitness after wrist problems that had hampered him for the best part of two years.
Too good a loser
Yet within the game there unquestionably remained a feeling that a player of Donald's undoubted quality should have been winning more tournaments.
Perhaps the problem was that he was too good a loser; too gracious and too polite in defeat for people to actually believe he was hurting - or at least hurting as much as they felt he should be.
The 2010 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth was a case in point. Looking all set for the biggest win of his career, Donald pushed a drive into trees at his penultimate hole and ran up a double-bogey seven to gift the title to Simon Khan.
Yet, despite offering his detractors more ammunition, there were no histrionics from Donald who in the aftermath of that body blow calmly stated: "I'll be disappointed for a few days, but I'll get my cap on again in a few days and I'll be in Madrid trying to win there."
It would have been easy to view those words as platitudes from a perennial loser, but instead that tournament in Madrid would become the starting point for a journey that would see Donald establish himself as the planet's most consistent winning machine.
Of course it didn't just happen by chance, Donald had already started to put in the work almost never seen by those outside the inner sanctum. Having called time on his eight-year partnership with brother and caddie Christian, in the close season he had worked on his swing (revamping his leg action), his physique (bulking up by ten pounds) and also his mind - hiring Jonny Wilkinson's kicking coach and mentor Dave Alred to help him develop the mentality of a sporting "assassin".
As Alred himself explained: "What's the mentality of the assassin? One shot, one kill. There's a little bit of evil in him, but he's ice-cold, calm and precise. It's a perfect game face for Luke and his personality."
With the disappointment of Wentworth still raw, Donald displayed that mentality in the Spanish capital as he saw off Rhys Davies down the stretch with a late eagle that secured a one-stroke victory and his first W for some four years.
It proved a watershed moment. In the intervening 18 months another four wins have followed, along with countless top-10s, a leading role in Europe's Ryder Cup success at Celtic Manor and an inevitable ascension to the world number one ranking.
He reached the summit in fitting style back in May, atoning for last year's blow-up at Wentworth by winning there 12 months later as he outlasted his rival for top spot in the rankings, Lee Westwood, in a sudden-death play-off.
Killer instinct
All the questions about killer instinct and ambition have vanished and if there were any left he answered them in emphatic style at the season-ending Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Classic at the weekend.
The man who supposedly put cash before titles, wealth before glory, showed just why he is the player that everyone else on the planet is now chasing.
The Fall Series event was not on Donald's schedule until Webb Simpson's runner-up finish at the McGladrey Classic the week before had seen the young American threaten to derail the Englishman's bid to become the first man to win the money list titles on both sides of the Atlantic.
It was a piece of history Donald was determined not to let pass him by although he entered knowing that anything less than a solo second place would see him come up short - a pressurised assignment few would have given the Donald of yesteryear any hope of pulling off.
But that was Donald then, the man who wouldn't and couldn't win when it mattered.
His back-nine performance in Florida on Sunday demonstrated what's changed. When he needed it most, Donald embarked on a quite scintillating birdie run that catapulted him to the top of the leaderboard at just the point when he and everyone watching had realised... it's now or never.
Under pressure, he turned it on and, having got himself into position, did not flinch when the opportunity to win presented itself.
It would now take a very brave, or downright foolish, man to back against Donald signing off his memorable 2011 campaign by wrapping up the Race to Dubai crown which he leads by €1.3 million from Rory McIlroy, while he is as short as 11/4 to add a first major to his trophy haul in 2012.
His is now an illness that his peers would love to contract. As PGA Tour colleague Joe Ogilvie commented earlier this year: "Where can I get me some of that Luke Donald disease?"
