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SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

January 12, 2007

Luke Donald

HONOLULU, HAWAII

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Thanks for joining us after the second round at the Sony Open in Hawaii. You shot a 63 yesterday and always difficult to follow-up a great round with another very good round and you managed to do that today with a 66. Still some players on the course but you're in great position heading into Saturday's third round.
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, today was harder for me. I didn't play as well. The first 12 holes especially was a mixture of some good shots, but a lot of scrappy shots as well. And I made a lot of good putts for par, which kind of kept the momentum going and was able to finish off nice and strongly over the last six holes. Three birdies in the last four is a nice way to finish.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You finished in the Top-10 last week, obviously very windy there, very windy here, but different golf courses. You have to like the way you're striking the ball overall.
LUKE DONALD: Definitely, the wind was stronger overall last week. Today it was breezy and made the course trickier than yesterday, that's for sure. It's a different golf course. You have to try to keep it more in the fairway this week, and that way you can shoot at some of the pins and give yourself some birdie chances.

Q. You had a pretty eventful start this morning. Can you tell us about your par on the second hole?
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I hit my drive way right, I'm not sure if it hit the cart path or not but it was way right. I didn't have much of a shot. I could have chipped it out sideways and still had a mid-iron to the green. I tried to hit a low shot through the trees, try to get it around the green-side bunker somewhere and unfortunately it hit one of the trees and I still had 80 yards left. Didn't hit a particularly great shot on to the front of the green but holed a nice 25-footer putt for par.
So, you know, lucky there's no pictures on the score card.

Q. Did you get at all frustrated through the first 12 holes or did you feel that momentum would --
LUKE DONALD: I found that I wasn't hitting the ball quite as well. It was definitely tougher out there and I just wanted to stay patient. I knew, you know, take one shot at a time, just try to keep hitting fairways, giving myself chances and something will happen, and it did.

Q. Any particular moment when you found that your game really clicked into place for your strong finish?
LUKE DONALD: I hit a nice drive on 13 and that kind of got my confidence back a little bit. I wasn't hitting it badly out there today but there was a few loose shots that haven't been present in my game for the last week or so. But I hit a nice, solid drive on 13 and a pretty good shot to the middle of the green. From there, really, I didn't hit a weak shot coming in.
So apart from my drive off 18, I kind of fanned into the wind a bit, but I was still able to get home in two.

Q. Is it a driver issue or an iron issue that you were having out there?
LUKE DONALD: No real issue. It was just windy and it was a little harder.
These fairways are tough to hit. They are kind of angled funny, especially kind of crosswind out there. They are tough to hit. I think any time you've got a 15-, 20-mile-an-hour wind, it's tough to keep your rhythm. It's tough to, you know, hit good shots all the time, and that's just why I hit a few scrappy ones really, no real reason.

Q. Can you explain why it's more important it seems like to be in the fairway here than it was last week, even though the rough last week seemed to be deeper than this rough?
LUKE DONALD: Well, there's a lot of trees just off the edge of the fairways, and usually if you're in the rough, you're stuck behind trees as well and you have to manipulate some kind of shot.
Last week it's a little bit more, even if the rough is a little bit higher last week, which might have been a little bit, usually you had a clear shot to the green even if you're in the rough.
I think it's the fact that it's generally a tight golf course.

Q. You won Omega a couple years ago; based on what Michelle did there and what she's doing here this year, what kind of advice would you give her at this point?
LUKE DONALD: I've always been a strong believer in that winning is very important. I went to college at Northwestern to try to learn to win, and I was lucky to win 13 times there. That really set me up and gave me some confidence going into the PGA TOUR.
I think any time, whether it's Michelle or anyone else, if their goal is just to come here and make a cut, I don't think you're here for the right reasons. So I would say, you know, go play the LPGA Tour and feel like you're going to win every week, and I think she has the talent to go and win many times out there, and then maybe, you know, come back and play the Sony Open again and give it a try.

Q. Did you ever find yourself kind of like getting burned out on golf?
LUKE DONALD: Well, Vijay's still winning at 43. I don't know if I can use that as a complaint.
There are times when I feel like I need to take a break for sure. It's a very, very long season. You need to, you know, be careful you're not overdoing it. Although I've probably worked as hard as I have in the last couple years on my game than any other time, there's still times when I need to take breaks and I'll not touch my clubs for a week or two weeks and just recharge the batteries.

Q. What about when you were younger when obviously you were not playing for these kind of purses and you were just kind of playing for whatever you were playing for, did you find yourself at times getting frustrated and burned out?
LUKE DONALD: No. But I wasn't playing PGA TOUR events at 16. I was just playing amateur golf.

Q. How much of an adjustment has it been for to you live in the United States?
LUKE DONALD: I've been here for nearly ten years now. I came here in September of '97. I love living here and love playing the PGA TOUR.
But I'll always consider myself British. I love going back home, too. It's nice to have the best of both worlds. I'm very fortunate to be a member of both tours. I enjoy Chicago and I live in Florida in the winter. Life's pretty good.

Q. Do you figure to win this, you have to go 11-under on the weekend as well?
LUKE DONALD: Probably not but depends on the wind. If it stays windy like this, then maybe --

Q. 20 might do it?
LUKE DONALD: 20 should do it. Scoring always gets harder on the weekend. Just the way it is.
But if it's calm, then I definitely might have to shoot another 11-under.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Luke Donald, thank you.

End of FastScripts

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