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BUICK INVITATIONAL

February 3, 2009

Luke Donald

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

MARK WILLIAMS: Luke, thanks for your time and coming in. You've had some good finishes here in the past. Just talk a little bit about your love of the golf course here and what you're looking forward to this week.
LUKE DONALD: I have had some good finishes here, so that was a very disappointing in my career when I injured my wrist six months ago or so in the U.S. Open. No, I have played well here. I've had a couple runner-up finishes. Yeah, I guess in a certain way I feel like this course owes me something, but we'll have to see how I play this week. But I'm looking forward to a successful week hopefully.
MARK WILLIAMS: Speaking of the wrist, you've got a couple of good rounds under your belt so far this season. Obviously it's in pretty good shape.
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, the wrist, no problems so far, touch wood, so it feels fine, really feels 100 percent healthy. Yeah, that's behind me, no excuses now, and I'm back to full health. Yeah, I've had a couple of solid tournaments, nothing spectacular, but some good, solid rounds to build on.

Q. Were there any positives from that forced time off?
LUKE DONALD: Well, there were a lot of positives. I think mostly there were a lot of negatives, obviously, as well, but on the positive side, I felt like my swing was slipping into some places that I didn't like in 2008 and it was causing a lot of inconsistency off the tee. I wasn't hitting enough greens. I was really relying on my short game to score out there. That's not really what I pride my game on.
I think the injury gave me time to reflect upon what I needed to get my swing back to. I looked at a lot of videos with my coach, and when I was able to start hitting balls I was able to start building my game up from the ground level, starting with putting and then short chips and working through the bag, and I think that's a great way, when you're working on certain fundamentals, to engrain them into your swing rather than go straight at it with a long club.
In that way I feel like my swing is a lot better than it was six months ago. I feel a lot more in control of the ball, and hopefully that will produce some results down the road.

Q. Some of the guys said you were kind of a regular on the chipping green there for a while when you couldn't do much else.
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I spent probably a good four weeks putting for two, three, four hours a day, and those kind of things help you down the road. I feel very confident in my putting now, and as I said, I was able to really build up my game from the ground up. That's something that you don't usually get to do or usually don't have the patience to do, but I was forced to do it because of my wrist injury.

Q. I remember back in 2000 Peter McEvoy said if there was one major you would win he thought it would be the U.S. Open. Having finished twice here and having to pull out last summer, did you feel that that was a fantastic opportunity for you to win a major, and do you have any thoughts going forward into this year as to targets or are you where you want to get your game back to on the course?
LUKE DONALD: Well, first question, I was four holes away from finishing. I wasn't in a position to win. I wasn't in a position to win. I put myself -- after two rounds I think it was two, three, four shots off the lead, so I was there or thereabouts, but I played badly on Saturday I think I remember and kind of shot myself out of the tournament.
For my expectations this year, they're very high. I think it's important for me to kind of have high expectations of myself but kind of check those at the door once I get to tournaments and just rely on the fact that the hard work I've been putting in is going to be good enough to produce the results I want, and sometimes I let my expectations get kind of in the way and expect too much out of myself. Hopefully this year I can get away from that and just rely on the process, and hopefully that hard work will produce some interesting results.

Q. You look fitter than usual.
LUKE DONALD: Well, another good thing is I was able to work out a little bit harder. I mean, I spent four or five months -- once I was healthy enough -- even when my wrist was not at a stage where I could lift weights, I was doing a lot of cardio and doing other stuff, core work. Definitely I'm fitter. I probably look leaner, if anything. Some people think I look skinnier, but I'm probably the same weight as I was but just in better shape.

Q. Is your strength up?
LUKE DONALD: I think my strength is up a little bit, yeah. I've been working quite hard, working diligently four or five times a week working out.

Q. Will that carry on through the season?
LUKE DONALD: That's the plan (laughter).

Q. Is there any difference in the sense of anticipation this week given your track record here and the fact that the guy that's won six of the last seven tournaments here isn't playing? Does that change things at all?
LUKE DONALD: I mean, anytime Tiger is not in the field, you feel like you have somewhat of a better chance just because he wins 30, 40 percent of the tournaments he plays in, or whatever ridiculous stat it is. Obviously you have a better chance if he's not playing.
But again, I think I realize that I do play well here, and I enjoy this course. But again, I'm going to kind of put that aside and just rely on the fact that I'm working hard. I've got to just control the things I can control and have a good attitude and kind of work ethic to put into practice days and then just go out there and have some fun and add it up at the end. Hopefully I'll be somewhere near the top.

Q. This course has always -- the perception of the course seems to favor just the bombers. Why do you think you've had so much success here?
LUKE DONALD: You know, I think it's a long course. You know, the back nine here is very long. I'm not obviously one of the longer hitters out here, but there's a lot of tough shots to the eye out here. You really have to see the shots very well. You have to kind of shape some shots into certain pins, and I think you can't just stand up there and wail away because it's a course you have to think about a little bit. That's why I like this place. There's some really tough pins, really tough pins to get to. You've got to kind of work the ball into it a little bit rather than just hammer away. Thinking that way, just kind of visually sets up pretty well for me.

Q. Could it be that some of the longer holes are tough for everybody?
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, they're tough for everybody. You know, they're long holes. Hopefully this year as I've increased my fitness a little bit, I'm hitting the ball a little bit further, so the distance factor shouldn't be as great.
But it's a tough course for everyone, as I said.

Q. Have you settled on a driver?
LUKE DONALD: I've played the Titleist D2 since the beginning of this year, and I used that in Tiger's event, as well. Still fiddling a little bit, but it feels pretty solid.

Q. Sorry if this is old hat, but I don't recall, was the wrist injury a wear-and-tear thing, or was there one particular thing on that last day that you did? How did that transpire?
LUKE DONALD: I believe it was wear and tear over a number of years. I had some soreness to the wrist for the first time at the beginning of the week and just felt strange. One tee shot, I was on the 15th tee, and that was on the Sunday, and I just felt a pop. That's when the tear must have given out. That's that. Five months later I was able to start hitting again.

Q. It would have been a better story if you had done it in the rough, wouldn't it, a good U.S. Open story?
LUKE DONALD: I'm sure the rough didn't help. Some of the courses we played last year, Muirfield, six inches of rough, you're just chipping sand iron out, at the U.S. Open, some of the other majors, heavy rough. It takes a lot of strength and pressure you're putting on your wrists and knees and whatever else. With the setups harder and harder these days, it's harder and harder on your body. You have to try to stay in shape.

Q. You said it was five months before you could hit balls. How long before your wrist felt like you didn't favor it and how long was the whole rehab process?
LUKE DONALD: Well, I injured it at the U.S. Open, and for three weeks I was misdiagnosed, then I spent a month trying to rehab it nonsurgically. Then that wasn't working and the tear was too significant. So August 11th I went into surgery, and that was a three-month process, six weeks of rest and six weeks of rehab.
After that, November 3rd, I hit my first full sand iron and just built it up a club every day. To answer your question, November 3rd was when I hit my first ball. I went and played in Sun City, which was the first week of December, and by then -- I wouldn't have played if the wrist didn't feel strong enough or 100 percent, really. It still felt a little different, but it felt 100 percent strong.

Q. A transplant, wasn't it?
LUKE DONALD: No, it was just -- I had a tear, and they went in and filled the hole and sewed the tear up.

Q. I'd be curious, from having played on the last two winning sides, from your perspective on the couch or wherever you were during the Ryder Cup, what did you see about the European side that looked different from the teams that you had played on?
LUKE DONALD: I'm not sure if I saw anything different in the European side. I felt like the Americans seemed a little bit more unified, a little bit more lighthearted, more having fun with the whole process. They obviously out-putted the Europeans this year. You know, and I think with any team it's very hard once you're down to kind of pick up that momentum and get that energy back. You know, as soon as the Americans got the Europeans down, it was very hard for them to get their heads back up, I think. They weren't obviously depressed or anything like that or they were still trying until the very end, and definitely it could have swung on Sunday, a few wins here and there, a few differences. I'm not sure if I saw any difference in the Europeans, I just felt like the Americans kind of figured it out mentally.

Q. Did you think being lighthearted and leading, there's a direct correlation there?
LUKE DONALD: Absolutely.
MARK WILLIAMS: Appreciate your time, Luke. Thanks for coming in.

End of FastScripts

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