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TARGET WORLD CHALLENGE PRESENTED BY WILLIAMS

December 11, 2005

Luke Donald

THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Congratulations, Luke, 2005 Target World Challenge presented by Countrywide champion. Great finish, great day, and a good springboard going into 2006.

LUKE DONALD: Yeah, absolutely. Obviously I've had a couple of quite a few near misses this year, and it's always nice to finish the year off in that way, shooting 64, and finishing off the job with a win is very, very satisfactory.

Obviously I tend to like the last tournaments of the year. I think I won the Southern Farm Bureau was the last tournament, and when I won the World Cup with Paul Casey that was my last tournament, so I have a good record with my last event.

Q. Eight shots back is not an advantageous position, but did you feel confident coming into today?

LUKE DONALD: I think I was six shots. I felt like it was the last round of the tournament, the last round of my year. I gave it my all, and who knows, if I shoot 8 under, I might have a chance.

Obviously I expected Darren, Padraig and Michael to maybe one of them out of those three maybe score 3 or 4 under, so I thought if I shoot 8 under it might be good enough.

Q. When did you realize that Darren did not birdie the 16th, or excuse me, bogeyed it actually?

LUKE DONALD: Someone told me just after I had signed my scorecard that he had a seven foot putt for par. When I got into the locker room, I heard he missed it.

Q. How much did you follow Northwestern sports when you were going there? You know they're going to a Bowl game. Or your golf is what occupies you?

LUKE DONALD: Well, I still live in Evanston, so I do follow Northwestern. The golf coach, Pat Goss, is still my swing coach. I played with the golf team. I follow the football whenever I can. I know as much that they're playing in the Sun Bowl, but I wouldn't say I'm a huge, avid fan, but I definitely keep up with it.

Q. On Thursday after five holes you were 1 or 2 over and probably still feeling a bit jet lagged. Can you chart your progress from that position and what you were thinking to where you are now?

LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I mean, Thursday I really didn't feel very good health wise. I was struggling a little bit with some kind of sinus, kind of a head cold, and was struggling and had a few birdies, few bogeys early on, cracked the face of my driver on the 5th hole and just played out with a 3 wood after that.

You know, I think after seven holes I was 2 over par for the tournament, and I bogeyed 10. So I was 3 over through 10, feeling down on myself, and then I made a few birdies and luckily finished birdie birdie that first round, got me back to even par. You always feel a lot better about yourself if you're at even par rather than 1 or 2 over.

I just kind of built my tournament after that round.

Q. At that point you're nine strokes behind Michael, though. Are you at all thinking about I mean, there's three days to go, but realistically, are you just thinking, okay, let me play three good rounds of golf after that, or are you still thinking you have a chance?

LUKE DONALD: You still think you have a chance, especially around a course like this where you can string birdies together. But there's also quite a lot of danger out there. You can make some bogeys.

The good breaks go my way and some of the bad breaks go against the leading players, then you can definitely catch the strokes up pretty quickly.

Q. Does that help set you up for '06? The Masters you played well last year, it's a Ryder Cup next year, or is there too much space in between now and '06?

LUKE DONALD: I think any time you win it gives you a lot of confidence. I think it's just a nice feeling to know that I came here and beat a very, very strong field; 16 of the top 20 players in the world were here. There are a few guys outside the top 20, but it was a very, very strong field, and that's a lot of satisfaction, to know that you can come here, play one bad round, even the first round, and still win.

That's going to give me a lot of confidence going into next year.

Q. The near misses this year, Players comes to mind and Torrey Pines. Was there another one?

LUKE DONALD: I was 3rd at The Masters but not really in contention. But Buick and Players Championship, and then last week really at Nedbank I missed out on a playoff by a shot. There's probably a few others. I shot a bad last round at BMW, leading.

Q. Which one bothered you the most and how much did it bother you to end the year coming into this thing without a victory?

LUKE DONALD: It did bother me. I mean, one of my goals was to win this year. You know, I'll definitely take this one. I would have loved to have won a regular Tour event, but winning this is just as good.

The one that bothered me the most probably was THE PLAYERS Championship. I think it was that one that obviously it was a tough final day with the weather and everything, and a few shots that I hit well ended up costing me. But I still had a good lead playing the final round and didn't win.

So that one bothered me, as did Torrey Pines, really, because I hit a couple bad shots coming down the stretch.

This one is nice because I finished off the back nine 5 under, just finished by playing good golf.

Q. Even going back to college, have you ever rallied from so far behind on the last day? That doesn't seem to be your M.O. really.

LUKE DONALD: Yeah, it's hard to think back. I can't really think of a time that I've come back from that far behind. I'm sure I could dig something up.

Q. Is there something that you might treat yourself to?

LUKE DONALD: I haven't even thought about it, to be honest.

Q. What are your goals for next year?

LUKE DONALD: You know, keep progressing the way I've been playing. I need to keep winning more and more, keep getting myself more and more in contention. Obviously majors are going to be a good thing next year, to be in contention at least two or three times going into Sunday, keep increasing my World Ranking. I think I'm just outside the Top 10. I want to be firmly inside the Top 10 by the end of next year. And I think winning, you want to keep winning.

Q. How do you balance the frustration of not having won as much as you'd like with the steady progress up the World Ranking to 12 or 13 or something like that?

LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I mean, in a way, it has been a satisfactory year. I've accomplished quite a lot this year. I've been very, very consistent, you know, only missed one cut this year. I've had a lot of tournaments where I've had a chance to win, but I haven't. That was really the only frustrating part, really, just not quite closing the deal when I had a chance to win.

But, you know, I think I'm learning from those, and hopefully next year, once you win a couple times, it makes it a lot easier.

Q. Did Tiger present the trophy to you?

LUKE DONALD: I haven't seen Tiger actually.

Q. He's been teeing off early this week. You probably missed him.

LUKE DONALD: Yeah, he didn't make too many moves this week.

Q. What do you need to improve to get from 12th or 13th to firmly inside the Top 10?

LUKE DONALD: I still need to improve my putting. I felt like even this week I hit some putts that I wasn't happy about. It wasn't misreads; they were bad putts, a few pulls, a few pushes. And I've been working hard the last few months on my putting. It's showing signs, by I definitely need to get that better if I'm going to be one of the top players in the world.

Q. If you can look ahead a little bit, the number of Europeans that have moved into the top 20, top 25, be it Monty and David Howell and yourself and on and on, we get to September every other year, and it always looks like you can look on paper how much the U.S. is stacked in the World Rankings and Europe is not. Do you think we might have a different look this year?

LUKE DONALD: Could well be. As I said, more of the Europeans have been playing well. Monty has obviously made a great comeback, David Howell has played very solidly this year, Darren is solid as usual. I think the first round when I played with him might have been one of the first rounds I've ever played with him. Yeah, it's very impressive, his ball striking and the way he went around the golf course.

You can obviously see that we have a lot of strong players, and that's why we've done so well in the Ryder Cup.

We always try and go in there as underdogs, but it might be hard next year.

Q. Did it take you time to get used to the traveling, the big trips, South Africa or China and that type of stuff and then back here, or were you sort of used to it having come from England originally before you arrived here?

LUKE DONALD: I don't think anyone really gets that used to jet lag. You just have to deal with it. It's just one of those things that I wish I didn't have to go through. But there's quite a few players here that played in South Africa, and we were all in the same boat. You just have to deal with it, really. I think staying busy and having to go to a function or having to get up in the morning, it forces you to get back on time quicker. There's no real secret to jet lag I don't think.

Q. Do you ever think, hey, this is my job and these people are, quote, throwing money at me, so it's no problem to be there?

LUKE DONALD: Well, it's no problem, no.

Q. Did the head cold on Thursday have anything to do with Wednesday, turning 28?

LUKE DONALD: No. I had half a drink actually, an alcoholic drink, on Wednesday. I was feeling worse on Wednesday than I was Thursday. It wasn't the best birthday I've ever had, but this is definitely making up for it.

Q. That half a drink is a half more than Darren apparently had this week. Is that a shock?

LUKE DONALD: Again, I haven't played much with Darren. Out of all the Europeans I probably know him the least. He does like a pint or two now and again, I believe (laughter). That is a little maybe they just don't make the Guinness quite as good here as they do back in Ireland.

Q. Something tells me he'll make up for it tonight.

LUKE DONALD: I'm sure he'll have a couple.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: We'll go through your card.

LUKE DONALD: Birdied the 1st; 2 iron, lob wedge to about 15 feet.

On the 4th, 3 wood, 6 iron to ten feet.

5th, driver and a 2 iron and two putted from the front edge, maybe 50 feet.

10, drive, lob wedge to four feet.

11, drive, 5 iron and two putted from about 40 feet.

13 was drive in the right rough, had to hit a 9 iron over a tree and then hit a 7 iron from there to about ten feet and holed the putt. It was a pretty key birdie there, I guess.

14 was a 3 wood, 8 iron to about 14 feet.

16 was a drive, 2 iron just over the back, chipped to about 12 feet and holed it.

Q. Are you spending Christmas in Chicago?

LUKE DONALD: I will be in Chicago this year.

Q. I wanted to ask you about that. For so many players that live in either Arizona or Florida and whatnot, what do you do when it's time to play golf again?

LUKE DONALD: Well, I spent quite a number of Christmases and that time in Chicago, and I finally wised up and I bought a place in Jupiter six months ago, so I will be going down there for New Year's and I'll be in Florida practicing. I'm a member of The Players Club there.

Q. Do you ever see Jack out there?

LUKE DONALD: Quite a bit.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Congratulations, and happy holidays.

End of FastScripts.

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