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Donald No. 1 in search of major title

Luke Donald, shown last month at the British Open, takes the world No. 1 ranking into the golf schedule's final major tournament. The PGA Championship opens Thursday. UPI/Hugo Philpott
Luke Donald, shown last month at the British Open, takes the world No. 1 ranking into the golf schedule's final major tournament. The PGA Championship opens Thursday. UPI/Hugo Philpott | License Photo

VIRGINIA WATER, England, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Luke Donald again takes the world No. 1 men's golf ranking to a major tournament with the year's final major -- the PGA Championship -- on tap this week.

Donald has twice finished as high as third in a major -- including at the 2006 PGA Championship -- but is one of only two players to hold the No. 1 ranking and not have a major tournament title.

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The other is Lee Westwood, who is fourth in the rankings and who has a pair of runner-up finishes in the major tournaments with third-place finishes in the other two.

Donald as been No. 1 for a total of 55 weeks, which is fifth most all-time. He has a rankings points average of 9.673. Tiger Woods, who has 14 major tournament wins, is No. 2 with an average of 8.529 with Rory McIlory in third at 8.462 and Westwood (7.478) fourth.

Webb Simpson (6.312), the U.S. Open champion, is fifth and Masters champion Bubba Watson (5.998) is sixth, up one spot this week. Adam Scott (5.990) drops to No. 7. Jason Dufner is eighth with an average of 5.898 followed by No. 9 Matt Kuchar (5.783) and Justin Rose (5.646).

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This year's other major tournament winner was Ernie Els at the British Open. He's No. 17 going into the PGA Championship.

Keegan Bradley won the World Golf Championship-Bridgestone Invitational Sunday and moves up to 15th this week, a 13-position improvement. J.J. Henry won the PGA's Reno-Tahoe Open and goes from 219th to No. 134 in the rankings.

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