Injury forces Donald outof BellSouth

THE risk of aggravating a problem shoulder on the eve of his Masters debut prompted Luke Donald to pull out of the BellSouth Classic in Atlanta yesterday, as torrential rain washed out the first day’s play.

The 27-year-old, joint runner-up in the Players Championship on Monday after that event was hit by bad weather too, contacted officials to say he felt the problem at a testing centre after his Wednesday pro-am.

Donald was one of 25 players in the field who are also competing at Augusta National next week and he had admitted that he arrived at the tournament mentally and physically drained after playing 33 holes at Sawgrass two days earlier.