The very first round of the World Golf Championships – Accenture Match Play Championships saw perhaps one of the biggest upsets in the history of the game as world number one golfer Luke Donald received an old fashioned spanking from Ernie Els, the lowest ranked player in the tournament to get knocked out of the championship that he won handsomely last season. Els spanked the defending champion Donald 5 & 4 in the first round match on the 22nd of February, 2012 to bury the ghosts of his horrible form going into the tournament.
Donald hardly got the space and time to settle down in the game as Els raced to a lead in the very first round after Donald had sunk the ball in the water. The only time that Luke Donald managed to pull level with the South African was on the par-four seventh when he scored his one and only birdie putt of the match. Ever since that hole, Donald seemed to be struggling at all points of the game against a man who, even the punters refused to put their money on.
At one point in the match, it almost seemed that Donald would be happy to run away and hide and not play the game but that didn’t happen and he was thrashed by Els, a term that is used on extremely rare occasions on a sport such as golf. After he squared the match, Donald hardly seemed to be the world number one player and fell behind by five shots by the completion of the next seven holes.
However, Luke Donald almost immediately acknowledged that the better player won the match and admitted that he struggled against the South African Els, saying that he needed to work a lot on his game from now on.