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TRANSITIONS CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 14, 2012Luke DonaldPALM HARBOR, FLORIDA Q. Talk about coming back here; you had success in the past, your thoughts on being here at the Transitions Championship. LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I've always enjoyed this golf course. I think it's a good golf course for me. You really have to have good course management around here. A lot of placing of the tee shot rather than just standing up and hitting away. There's a lot of tactical stuff involved with this course. I like this course. Yeah, finished fifth or sixth a couple years ago and I've always felt pretty comfortable around here. Didn't play last year because of schedule but feel good about it. Q. Talk about your schedule, I believe this is the fourth tournament in a row for you. Concerned with fatigue or anything? LUKE DONALD: No, I had played two, L.A. and the Match Play, week off, and then Doral and this week. So not worried about fatigue. Probably played the least amount of anyone actually. Q. Talk about your thoughts getting ready to go into the Masters. LUKE DONALD: Well, hopefully I can have a good, solid week, build off last week. And then I'll have a good couple of weeks of practice at home and feel confident about my chances. I always enjoy Augusta. I had a good opportunity last year and was in the mix and looking forward to getting back there. I always enjoy that place. Q. Getting to No. 1 was obviously very important for you. Is getting back to No. 1 just as important, or is it sort of a been there, done that mentality? LUKE DONALD: I don't know if getting to No. 1 was that hugely important to me. I've always focused on putting myself into contention to try and win tournaments and hopefully majors, and obviously did that a lot last year; and as a consequence, I went to No. 1. But you know, it's nice being No. 1. I think there's a few bragging rights. The prestige is great. But it's not what I'm really focused on. Q. Did you have a little bit of a hard time, the off‑season wasn't really much of an off‑season, almost like you accomplished all that and boom, you're right back at it again. Did you need more time to recharge coming into this year? LUKE DONALD: I haven't played too much this year. I was very conscious of that.  I did four in a row a couple times last year tournament‑wise and I felt like the fourth one I was always dragging a little bit. Hence, this is only my, what, fourth event on the PGA TOUR, probably fifth in total this year. So I spaced it out pretty well this year, and obviously I'll be getting a little bit busier going forward now. Q. I know it's been a long, long way off, but the European Ryder Cup Team is really stacking up to be pretty stout. Some pretty good players are not going to make it probably. Just curious what you think of that, how it looks at this point. There might be 20 guys that could be on that team. LUKE DONALD: You know, similar thing happened to us two years ago obviously. There was a big fight between myself, Pádraig, Casey, Justin, and that's a good problem for a captain to have when they have a lot of people to choose from and there's people fighting to get on the team. Obviously I think there will be another close contest, as it always is. Americans seem to have been playing great, especially the first part of this year. They have been dominating the tournaments up, other than the last two weeks, so it's shaping up to be a nice little event. Q. What do you think of the decision to go to only two captain's picks? LUKE DONALD: I think, I don't know specifically, but I feel like when Olazábal got the switch around from the World Rankings and The Race to Dubai, I think that was his main priority. He thought once he got that on his wish list taken care of, that the picks wasn't quite as big as a deal. But you'd have to ask Ollie about that. But that's my guess. Q. Going back to the question Bob had earlier, how draining was last year? Is it difficult to top that, top what you did? LUKE DONALD: Certainly difficult. It's going to be difficult; no one has officially ever done what I did last year, winning both money titles. That takes some strain. All of the travel, you know, and it wasn't just the physical travelling and the golf. There was obviously some issues with my father passing away, and those kind of things take it out of you, as well. But certainly it was a long year, but it was a good year and I wouldn't do anything different. Q. What would you consider topping that? LUKE DONALD: I would love to win a major. That's always been something I'm striving to do. I think that would make my resumé look a lot better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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