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SONY OPEN IN HAWAIIJanuary 11, 2007Luke DonaldHONOLULU, HAWAII TODD BUDNICK: We welcome Luke Donald who shot a 63 during round one of the 2007 Sony Open in Hawaii, a nice 7-under today, a good start, and a good follow-up to last week's seventh place finish over at Mercedes. LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I felt like I was playing reasonably solidly last week, and it was nice to come here and not get pounded by the wind quite as much today. I've always enjoyed playing this golf course, and you know, I played very nicely today and more importantly holed the putts for birdie when I needed to which is kind of the difference between today and last week. Q. Some guys worry about in the wind and the elevation I guess of last week of having to get your posture back to where it should be. Did you have any issues there? LUKE DONALD: Not too many. I think, you know, having been in Florida now for the winter, it's reasonably windy there. So I've been practising in the wind somewhat. So it wasn't too much of a novelty. But it can disrupt your rhythm quite a lot, and you can get stuck in your left side a little bit too much. But I made sure I worked on it a little bit the last couple of days, getting back onto my right foot, getting back onto weight onto my heel and getting back to swinging normally I suppose but it wasn't too much of an adjustment. Q. What about the bermuda and how do you like the bermudagreens and how would you compare the difference between the greens last week and what you see out here today at Sony? LUKE DONALD: The greens are a little quicker here, not as slopey, and that's probably why they can get them a bit quicker. And because of that, because they are quicker, there's a little bit less grain in them compared to last week. But I enjoy -- the faster the greens, the more I enjoy it, so I prefer this week a little bit to last week. Q. What's a bigger difference, the weather conditions or course conditions? It's a totally different type of course. LUKE DONALD: It's a lot flatter. You have to really be a little bit more specific off the tee. I think last week the fairways are so wide, it's hard to miss fairways, and this week's the opposite. You're struggling to hit a lot of fairways. So you have to be very specific off the tee, hit good targets, and, you know, swing aggressively. Q. How many people did you have following you when you teed off this morning? LUKE DONALD: Not many. Three or four. (Smiling). Q. We're not counting marshals, though. LUKE DONALD: Maybe they were following someone else. (Laughter). Q. Was there much noise out there? LUKE DONALD: I heard no noise really. You mean from other parts of the course? Q. Yes. LUKE DONALD: I wasn't hearing much. I got one score update, I wasn't sure if it was true, 8-over after 8. I don't know if that was true or not. Q. No, it was 8-over after 9. Rumours. When are you coming back to Europe? Can we talk a little about your schedule? LUKE DONALD: I will be back in Europe for the BMW Championship at Wentworth will be my first one. I play that, and then I'll play a few around the British Open as well. I'm definitely playing Loch Lomond. Obviously the Open Championship and not quite sure after that. Q. Will we see you in Crans this year? LUKE DONALD: It's tough because of the new PGA TOUR schedule with the THE TOUR Championship and the run of tournaments for the playoff, it's going to be hard for me to get there, so I don't think I'll make it this year. Q. Bear with me if I completely butcher this question, but you seem like a different player than you were a year, year and a half ago. People have said you look like a stronger player, better player, but if you look at your record, I not like you've won a major or two, and really your only PGA TOUR win last year was Honda, and yet you look like a much better player. Do you follow that at all and can you speak to that, and if you don't, can you please bail me out of this. LUKE DONALD: Well, I feel like I'm improving. I'm getting better every year. It has not quite yet resulted in a lost wins, winning majors and that kind of stuff, but I feel like I'm getting a lot closer than I was a year or two ago. Just through really hard work and believing that I can get to that point where I'm winning multiple times in a year and you know, having chances and winning majors. I guess does that answer your question. Q. You know that was a compliment or intended to be one anyway. Did Honda do that much for you? Or do you feel like you were getting there whether you had won that or not? LUKE DONALD: I think winning really does help. It breeds a lot of confidence and it makes you believe more in yourself. So in a way, just reinforce what I thought I could do, and I think that's important in golf. Sometimes there's a lot of great players out here, and you can get beaten up by them quite a lot. It's hard to win every week and hard to be competitive every week. It can take a strain on your mental side sometimes. I've gotten to the stage where I'm expecting to be up there and contending and winning each week I play. That's something that was probably not quite there a year or two ago. Q. I guess that's probably where I'm headed. What turned that for you? LUKE DONALD: Well, winning helps. Q. That was a big part of it then? LUKE DONALD: Just I think re-evaluating my mental approach to the game a little bit. Setting my goals a little bit higher, really believing in myself. Almost tricking my subconscious that anyone can do this, I can. There's no reason why I can't keep improving. You know, today obviously was a good day for me and it felt -- didn't feel that hard. It didn't feel that hard to shoot 7-under, but it's obviously easy to say that when everything is going well. Q. Is there anything that kind of triggered it today or that got you started? LUKE DONALD: Not really. Just felt good about my game. Just felt confident. Just felt good. I can't think of anything that triggered it. Q. Are you working with a mental coach? LUKE DONALD: I've worked with a guy called Jim Fannin since the end of 2003. TODD BUDNICK: Let's go through the round. LUKE DONALD: Starting on the back, 10, I hit driver and a sand iron and holed about an eight-foot putt. I bogeyed 13. I hit driver in the right rough just short of the green and wasn't able to get up-and-down. 14, I hit a drive and an 8-iron to three feet. 16, 3-wood and a pitching wedge to about ten feet. 3-wood off the tee on 18 and 2-iron just short of the green. Got up-and-down and made about a 5-foot putt for birdie there. Second hole, I hit a 3-wood very close to the water on the left. I couldn't get a proper stance. My second shot was just short left of the green and didn't get up-and-down for bogey. And I hit 3-wood, pitching wedge to eight feet on the third hole. 5-iron to about 22, 25 feet on 4 and made that putt. Drive in the left rough on 6. 7-iron to six feet and made that putt. Drive on 8, pitching wedge to maybe 15, 12 feet, made that. And then drive and a 2-iron on to the green on 9 and 2-putted from about 25, 30 feet. TODD BUDNICK: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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