Golf: Despite his spectacular 2011, Luke Donald admits there will "always be an asterisk" next to his name until he wins one of golf's majors. The Englishman completed an unprecedented money-list double at the weekend when he finished top of the European Tour's 'Race to Dubai' standings.
He had already wrapped up the PGA Tour's money list. However, despite his impressive year, the world number one realises he needs to break his major duck to be universally acclaimed.
Speaking after being named PGA Tour player of the year - an award voted for by his fellow professionals - Donald said: "I think there will always be a little bit of an asterisk against my name until I win one, but I'll be trying very hard to correct that (in 2012).
"Obviously something that is missing from my resumé is a major and something I'll continue to concentrate on trying to focus my efforts on, giving it my best shot. I would love to win one, obviously, and I'm jealous of all the other players that have one."
Asked why it had not yet happened for him, Donald responded: "I suppose there's a little bit more pressure, a little bit more expectation in majors and I need to learn to better handle that.
"Obviously this year has been a breakout year for me in terms of my confidence levels, and hopefully those confidence levels will be carried over to next year and will serve me well in the majors."
Having finished in the top 10 of 20 of the 26 tournaments he has contested so far this year, winning four of them, it is no surprise that the Englishman is planning a similar schedule in 2012.
"I'm going to play a very similar schedule," he confirmed. "I'll be playing both tours again. Obviously with the Ryder Cup year, again, it's nice to be a member of both tours, and I'm looking forward to earning some points and hopefully getting on that European side.
"But my schedule won't change too much. The only real issue I had in my schedule this year was I felt like I played a little bit too much around the US Open. I felt quite tired at that event, and I didn't perform very well.
"It was a mixture of playing too much and being a little bit under the weather. I had some strep throat, and that didn't help matters. But other than that, my schedule will be very similar for next year."
