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WGC CADILLAC CHAMPIONSHIP

March 9, 2011

Luke Donald

MIAMI, FLORIDA

GORDON SIMPSON: Welcome to Luke Donald, and Luke, you've got one WGC event tucked away in the locker this season; could there be a second in the offing this week at the Cadillac Championship?
LUKE DONALD: That would be nice. Historically, I have not really contended at this event at Doral for some reason. But certainly the form is good, and there's no reason why add to the Match Play event.
GORDON SIMPSON: You took a while to get going this year deliberately to start the season; but do you feel what happened at Accenture has vindicated your slow start into the year?
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I think the decision I made to spend a little bit more of an off-season working on a few things really panned out and worked out. So you know, it's obviously a good start to the season after a slow start at L.A., going onto win and a solid week last week. My game feels very solid and kind of where I want it to be.

Q. So often players take breaks or might even force through injury or whatever and then come back and actually play quite well. Do you get twitchy when you're away thinking you should be playing and working or are you so experienced now it doesn't really matter?
LUKE DONALD: I do think -- this is my 10th, 11th season out on TOUR, and I've kind of been there and done that and know what works well for me. You know, I somewhat wanted to get back maybe a couple of weeks early, seeing the guys out there and winning tournaments, and wanting to do that, as well.
I felt like I had a plan and I kind of wanted to stick to it. It was necessary for me to take some time off this season just because I had had a long run of years where I had not really had a break. Just wanted to kind of experiment to see if it would make a difference. You know, I'm not sure if I attribute that totally to the win. But certainly didn't hurt.

Q. How much of the break is actually a break, completely switching off everything and relaxing, and how much do you find yourself working on aspects of your game and so on?
LUKE DONALD: I think I had a total of 11 weeks off and I didn't touch a club for six of them. I was in the gym doing other stuff towards the game, but in terms of hitting balls and practicing, I didn't do anything for six weeks.
So it was nice. It was nice to just get away from it, visit some family, go to England, spend some time with my family. So I took six weeks off and I spent a good five weeks really preparing for the season.

Q. No. 3 in the world; do you feel that comes with any additional pressures, that you have to prove yourself or show yourself worthy of being No. 3?
LUKE DONALD: I'm not sure. I mean, No. 1 maybe, there's probably a little more weight on your shoulders being No. 1.
No. 3, again, I don't really think about it too much. Again, I just try to go through the steps that I think will make me as good as I can be. If that means picking up trophies and climbing up the rankings, so be it.
It's always going to bring more media. I've had a bunch more media this week than I usually would. That's a little bit distracting away from working on my game, but it's something you just have to get used to and deal with.
But other than that, I don't feel like the expectation is any different.

Q. You're not worrying about falling down to No. 5 now, there's none of that?
LUKE DONALD: No. If someone overtakes me and plays well, they deserve to do that. I'll be trying to obviously play well this week again and win and see where that puts me in the rankings.
But again, I'm not too fussed.
GORDON SIMPSON: Is it a nice feeling knowing that the 1, 2 and 3 in the world are all playing together on Thursday and Friday and that you're a part of that?
LUKE DONALD: It is a nice feeling. Certainly you use that to your advantage, and that adds to your confidence level; that there's only two players ranked higher than me in the world right now, and that's pretty amazing to think about.
And it will be fun on Thursday and Friday, I think having Lee and Martin there, two Ryder Cup teammates, we get along very well. It will be exciting but fun, as well.

Q. Are you pleasantly surprised by how quickly you've slipped back into the groove playing well after such a long break and what's your schedule from now until Augusta?
LUKE DONALD: Yeah, reasonably -- not really that surprised; the time flew by to be honest. It didn't seem like 11 weeks.
And I know I worked pretty hard those four or five weeks leading up to L.A.; that's why I was a little disappointed that I played poorly in that second round. But I think that's just more of getting back into that competitive rhythm. There's no substitute for playing tournaments. And you know, maybe winning the second week back was a little earlier than I thought maybe, but as hard as I've been working, kind of thought it was possible.
My schedule, I'm actually not playing a tournament until the Masters. That will be my next event.

Q. You mentioned playing with Lee tomorrow. Can you just talk about the respect that he has in the locker room, a guy that really has had two careers; he came out really hot as a young player, fell to 260 in the world and in the last few years has been pretty brilliant?
LUKE DONALD: Everyone has a lot of respect for Lee. I think he carries himself well. He's a hard worker. He's probably the best-ball striker out there right now. I think to anyone would goes through a dip like that where they lose confidence, start to question themselves and whether they are ever going to come back; and to have that fortitude and strength, I guess rededication to the game is pretty amazing. It's not easy to do.
Yeah, hats off to Lee for doing it.

Q. So you're going to take three weeks off then after this it before Augusta? Have you ever done that and what prompted you to try that, if it that's new?
LUKE DONALD: Just looking back at past performances. I like Tampa, but that would be five tournaments in a row for me, which I think my limit really is four before getting a little bit burnt out being on the road for that long.
Historically, I have not played that great at Bay Hill, and I've played even worse at Houston. So, you know, it's nothing against the events; it's just you go and play places you think you're going to be successful at, and I don't have the greatest confidence for those two events unfortunately.
I will spend the time working on the game again.

Q. Working on the game; what will you do? Will you try to go visit Augusta? Will you go home and just sit there and pound balls?
LUKE DONALD: The plan is to go to Augusta, I think the Thursday or Friday, or Friday/Saturday before the Tournament. I will also spend some time with the greens staff at the Bear's Club trying to get one of the greens very fast. I may even go to Seminole a few times; I know it worked pretty well with Ben Hogan who used to go over there and practice. Played in the Seminole Pro-Am on Monday, their greens are very fast and slopey, and it would be a good place to do some practice, too. Just little things like that to try and get ready.

Q. I don't know if you addressed this, just walked in, but being No. 1, you've risen very quickly; is that any sort of motivating factor, or winning tournaments is more of an importance?
LUKE DONALD: I think winning tournaments is more important. I've always said that if you win tournaments and do well and are very consistent, the rest will kind of take care of itself. You know, No. 1 would be an amazing feat. Just to say that you're the best at your sport is pretty amazing. But no, I'm just concentrating on winning right now.

Q. I think you're one of the guys that's involved in that tourplayers.com website; what's that all about? What's the benefit for you all, and what was sort of the motivation of getting that started?
LUKE DONALD: It's just an idea why we thought we could give the fans a little bit more insight into what we do; a bit more access to some videos and behind the scenes kind of stuff. We thought it would be a good idea, kind of like a Facebook for the PGA for the players.
GORDON SIMPSON: Well, have a great week with the 1, 2 and 3 on Thursday.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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