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THE BARCLAYS SCOTTISH OPENJuly 10, 2011Luke DonaldINVERNESS, SCOTLAND MICHAEL GIBBONS: Many congratulations, The Barclays Scottish Open Champion 2011, has a nice ring to it, hasn't it. LUKE DONALD: It has a nice ring, yeah. It was a tough week. Obviously a long week with so many delays but conditions were good today for scoring and I took advantage of it. I holed putts when I needed to, and it's nice to do it when it matters. Certainly did that today. So it's nice to get another victory, too. I think I can get used to this. MICHAEL GIBBONS: 63, impressive in the final round. Did you impress yourself, do you think? LUKE DONALD: As I said, the scoring conditions were there. There were a couple other low rounds. Fredrik had a very low won. Barely made the cut and finished second. If you played well the t it was there for the taking and with the greens being softer and very little wind. But I holed the putts when I needed to, and I holed a bunch of 20-, 25-footers out there today, and had a good feel for the greens. I was seeing the lines very well and it was nice to hold them when it mattered. I felt good out there. I felt very comfortable and very in control, and that's a good sign for next week. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Certainly the confidence must be pretty high going into next week. LUKE DONALD: Yeah, you know, there's always a little added pressure when you're No. 1, but hopefully I've proved that I can handle that and obviously next week will be different, but it was a pretty strong field this week and the best way to prepare for next week. Q. You said whenever you were in the lead, you wanted to lap the field and you only had three rounds to try and do it. Does this constitute lapping the field? LUKE DONALD: Some of my other victories have been very close coming down the 18th, and it's still -- with four holes to go -- with five holes to go, the goal was to make three birdies. I knew that there was still a lot of opportunities for birdies; that someone could go on a run behind me and I needed to keep pressing on. So I obviously did that. Birdied 15, 16 and 18, so accomplished that goal. Q. Are you superstitious? It's very rare for a player to win the week before an Open. LUKE DONALD: I don't think it's ever been done, has it? Oh, not winning the Scottish, yeah. Q. Just wondered if you were superstitious. LUKE DONALD: Not really. I see it at all positives. I'll be high on confidence. I'm obviously hitting the ball nicely and to do it on a links course is even better. That's why I decided to play in Scotland this year, because of the move here to Castle Stuart, and yeah, I'm looking forward to hopefully bringing this game to next week. Q. Does it add to the victory, your Scottish lineage? LUKE DONALD: Obviously my dad was born in Scotland. He only lived here for two years and has been in England ever since. So he doesn't have a Scottish accent or anything. But my grandmother had a Scottish accent, and certainly I think my dad is very proud of being Scottish and his heritage. So yeah, it certainly adds to the victory. MICHAEL GIBBONS: You certainly have a fine pair of Scottish trousers on. Q. Your impressions of this magnificent new trophy designed for holding whisky, I saw you with a bottle of champagne next to it, but a magnificent trophy indeed, isn't it. LUKE DONALD: It's spectacular and it's going to look very nice with some of my other trophies. Yeah, this one is very good, thanks for the history and the info, it will add to some of the conversations when people ask me about it. So very happy to be the first winner of this new trophy for The Barclays Scottish Open. Q. How important now is the kind of process of dealing with the emotional side of a victory, which is obviously all very, very satisfying, but knowing how much to celebrate it, and to pace yourself to make sure that you're completely fresh for next Thursday? LUKE DONALD: Yeah, sure, the celebrations will be on hold for a few weeks. I still have this week -- next week and the Canadian Open on my schedule before a little break before Akron. So you know, even though there are a couple of early wake-up calls, I still feel pretty good about my energy level. This is my first week after a two-week-off period. I'm not concerned that it took too much out of me. I still feel pretty fresh from that break, and this is the perfect start to my little run of three tournaments coming up. Q. What's the main challenge you face at Sandwich? LUKE DONALD: The challenge is always to have your game that week during a major. I'm guessing, looking in past performances, history of how I've played, I like going on runs of tournaments. And when I play well, I tend to play well the next week. So just managing those expectations, not getting too ahead of myself and still sticking to the processes of what I need to do to improve. But really, this is a great start. The one change, I'll still practise pretty hard. I probably won't play tomorrow but I'll still hit the range and getting some short game -- I know the forecast is a little bit better down there. The ground, I'm sure, is a little bit firmer than it was this week, so working on some short game stuff, getting a feel for the speed of the greens, and then I'll head back out to the course on Tuesday and Wednesday. Q. Will you play 18 -- LUKE DONALD: Not sure yet. We'll have to see how I feel, how the course is playing, whether the wind direction is the same on those days or whether it changes. It might be beneficial to play 18 or it might be beneficial to play just two nines. But certainly I feel fresh enough to be able to play as much as I need to. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Luke, many congratulations again, good luck next week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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