	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIP

September 4, 2010

Luke Donald

NORTON, MASSACHUSETTS

JOHN BUSH: Luke Donald joins us at the Deutsche Bank Championship in the media center after a 4-under par 67. He's at 10-under par for the tournament. Just comment on another good day out there.
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, obviously yesterday a little bit different weather conditions, a little bit more rainy, but the course played pretty benign because of no wind today. It was a little bit tougher with the wind swirling around in the trees. But the greens are soft, again, the fairways are aren't running so the balls aren't getting away from you. And the greens are really putting very pure. These are some of the best bent greens we play on all year, and I've really taken advantage of that and putted really well the last two days.

Q. You're 17th in the FedExCup standings. You played well last week with a T15. Just talk a little bit about your goals for the rest of this week, the last two rounds.
LUKE DONALD: Well, I'm in a great position to hopefully contend, and in the Playoffs, winning is very important. It gets you in a great position for the TOUR Championship. Matt Kuchar obviously jumped up a lot, Martin Laird I think went to 3rd from 90th or something, so if you can do well, you can make big jumps.
That would set me up nicely for -- obviously a good weekend here will pretty much solidify my place in Atlanta and give me a chance to compete for that FedExCup.

Q. With all the emotions, I guess, from last Sunday, who got picked, who didn't get picked, two questions: Have you been stunned at all, if you've come across any criticism about you being picked and others not, and secondly, was that any kind of a motivating factor to play well this week?
LUKE DONALD: Well, I think to answer your first question, no, the players who weren't picked were very congratulatory to me. Obviously the picks could have gone different ways, and I think they understood the picks. They just probably didn't understand the system and the process of qualification, and maybe that needs to be looked at for further years.
Certainly as a wild card there's slightly more pressure on you to perform, but this week obviously there was no pressure on me; I was in. I had no anxious feelings about whether I was going to be in or not. I was just able to go out there and have fun, so I've been doing that.

Q. You've kind of been building to this all year. I know you won in Europe, but you've had some great finishes here. Can you sort of talk about the state of your game right now and how confident you feel?
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, it's been reasonably good. I've been working very hard at least on my game. This last two days I really haven't hit the ball as well as I know I can. I've struggled a little bit off the tee. My accuracy hasn't been great. Just the strike and the ball coming off the face hasn't been quite there.
But I've certainly made up for it on the greens. A couple weeks ago at the PGA and the Firestone, I struggled around the greens. I was poor chipping, my putting wasn't very good. It's kind of swapped, switched around a little bit. Probably just because I focused heavily on my short game the last couple of weeks to tidy it up.
But I certainly feel closer with my long game, it's just kind of a work in process.

Q. Going into yesterday, your side of the draw with what might have been coming might have been the more challenging side. How important was it to get off to a good start yesterday, and then today with the conditions the way they were, did you go out thinking another low number is out there because of what we didn't get and what the conditions were like?
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, certainly after that first rain delay I was kind of wishing I was in the morning yesterday. But when we got back out, the conditions weren't too bad really. Again, the wind stayed away. There was a few rain showers which were really just more annoying than anything.
But to be honest the course played okay. The morning guys probably had it a little bit better, but it certainly wasn't a big difference between morning and afternoon.
And I thought this morning if we could -- when we started, there was no wind at all, and I thought we might even get the better of the draw. But pretty much my second and third hole the wind decided to pick up, and I think it's going to be blowing most of the day. So to be honest, I think the draw was pretty similar for both of us.
JOHN BUSH: Luke, the bogey on No. 11, take us through real quick.
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I had a 4-iron there and it plugged in the face of the bunker and I missed about an eight foot putt there.
12, drive and a 3-iron to six feet.
18 was a drive and a 5-iron and I two-putted from about 30 feet.
1, drive, 9-iron, about 15 feet.
2, drive, 8-iron, lob wedge to 12 feet.
8, 5-iron to about 12 feet.
JOHN BUSH: Luke, thanks for coming by. Appreciate it.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297