U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 26, 2000

Luke Donald

LUKE DONALD: Thank you, yeah. I really enjoyed my time here. I'm obviously disappointed today to lose, getting so far and you really feel like it's just very disappointing. But I've had a very good week, I've enjoyed myself immensely. Everyone's been so friendly.

LUKE DONALD: Yeah, early on it went back and forth a bit. James won the first with a par, came back with a couple of birdies on 2 and 3. I think James made a good putt on 9 to square the match, and then I really gave him the hole on 10. Every time you lose a hole with a par, you feel disappointed. But all credit to James. He got a great up-and-down on 11 to -- I was already in for 4. And then 13 was I think a big turning point in the match. Just made a birdie on 12 to get back to even, and then it just was a really poor swing and hooked into the hazard there. Just gave him another hole. Then I just -- I couldn't find any birdies out there.

LUKE DONALD:: I was a little disappointed, especially on the back nine, with how I played. Bogeyed 10, doubled 13 and one birdie on 11. So I was over par one or even more over par. You're just not going to win at this stage of the competition. So I struggled with my distance a little bit with my irons into the greens. I kept coming up short, I'm not sure why. Usually that's a big strength of mine. I was short on 14. 15, just not very good swing. 16 was short as well.

LUKE DONALD: Yeah, it was in the hazard.

LUKE DONALD: In water. It was underneath the surface. But I -- the only other option I had really was to go back to the tee, which I could have done, but -- I could have taken it back on the line, but I would have gone back at least 80 yards because the line where it crossed and where the pin was went directly along the hazard. So that wasn't really a viable option either.

LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I hooked my tee shot left and it was really a very narrow, small water hazard.

LUKE DONALD: And my ball was in it. Fair enough, I hit a bad shot, I deserved that. I tried to hit it out, it came out maybe ten yards but it's still in the rough behind the tree. And I hit a low shot just short of the green, still in rough, chipped over the green, chipped back and James was already within three. He was maybe four feet away in three, so I conceded hole.

LUKE DONALD: I'd say it was probably 18 -- 16, 18 feet.

LUKE DONALD: He was very solid. He didn't make too many mistakes. He really didn't give me a hole, you know. He made me work to win a hole out there, and came up with some big shots. I think chip on 11, you know, I hit it stone dead. And he knew he had to get up-and-down; he did. 15, he holed that maybe 10, 8-foot putt. It's a big putt to make. 16, he hits it. I don't know what he hit, 9-, or 8-iron, stone dead. 17, after hitting a poor tee shot, I'm not sure what happened in the bunker, maybe he tapped it out. He still had 190 to the pin head, shot really solid to the middle of the green. He didn't make any mistakes, didn't really make any bogeys which gave me holes that way. He played really solid. He didn't do much wrong.

LUKE DONALD: Mine was probably six or seven feet.

LUKE DONALD: Yeah. It was a pretty easy putt, straight up the hill. I just felt I pushed it a little bit.

LUKE DONALD: Yeah, James won the 9th after not a very good tee shot. He had a good approach, holed a long putt, I missed from inside. 10, I just didn't quite hit my tee shot solid, came up short. And another bogey, you know? Suddenly I'm one-up to one-down, momentum changed dramatically.

LUKE DONALD: Actually, I probably felt more nervous in yesterday's match than I did today. But for some reason, I just -- some of my irons coming down the stretch just weren't getting close enough. I was just giving myself too long of putts to expect to hole them. At this stage of the game, par was not good enough.

LUKE DONALD: Obviously it would have been extremely nice to win here. I've accomplished a reasonable amount as an amateur, won the NCAAs, been on a victorious Walker Cup team, had numerous other career victories. This obviously would have been the pinnacle of my amateur career. It would have really rounded off a great amateur record for me. And it is a shame to get so far and just fall at the last hurdle.

LUKE DONALD: Most likely. At the moment my plans are to perhaps play another Walker Cup and then turn pro. But I think I'm gonna turn pro next summer some time. So it seems little point to play an amateur -- another amateur, if I was going to turn pro then because I wouldn't be able to reap the benefits of what you get for winning this title.

LUKE DONALD: Thank you.

End of FastScripts….