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RBC HERITAGEApril 20, 2014Luke DonaldHILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Luke Donald into the interview room. I know that's a tough finish for you out there, another great showing for you here at the RBC Heritage, but sometimes you have to take your hat off to the other player. A great round by Matt, 64 today, your thoughts. LUKE DONALD: Yeah, I made it into the media room, fortunately, but finishing second isn't what I was hoping for. Disappointing, obviously, not to have won.  Usually a solid 69 on a windy day with a two‑shot lead is usually enough to get it done on Sundays, but obviously a lot of great players. It's tough to win out here, and hats off to Matt for a superb round. 64 was tough going in those conditions, with tough hole conditions out there. Q. Luke, we're looking back at the round, those two swings on 6 and 10, if you could have that back, what happened on those that you can pinpoint? LUKE DONALD: Yeah, 6 I got a gust of wind just on my backswing, kind of pushed me backwards, and I kind of overcompensated. It was just one of those things. 10 was just a poor swing. I flipped it. It's kind of a little bit of my old tendency creeping in. And it's going to take some time to get all of that out. What I'm working on hopefully will help that. But other than that, and obviously not a great shot into 18, just trying to hit a draw in there and just came out of it. Other than that, it was a lot of solid shots. A lot of solid golf this week to build off. My next event is THE PLAYERS, another event I've had some success at in the past, and I'm a bit excited to go there. Q. I was going to ask about those two drives. But are you encouraged, I assume, with things you're working on and things you saw this week? LUKE DONALD: Yeah, obviously I take a lot of positives away from this week. And it was good to be in the mix again. I haven't really been in the mix this year, and had a little bit of a chance in Tampa. But this is what you want to do, is get back in that opportunity to win tournaments. This is obviously a step in the right direction. I would have loved tohave been sitting here as the winner, but Matt played a great round. Q. Can you talk about also the conditions out there, and also 15, obviously par‑5, disappointing with the approach shot in there? LUKE DONALD: 15, I thought that was pretty good. Obviously it's tough to get the distance right. On 15 I thought it looked pretty good. Came up short on 16. I played where the wind should have been, which would have been a little bit to the right. When I hit that shot I must have been a little bit of help, because it obviously went 20, 25 feet by. And obviously I wasn't trying to play safe to the middle of the greens, I was trying to hit it close and make birdies. And that's just the tough part about wind. It's hard to judge sometimes. Q. Secondly, at what point did you become aware of what Matt did on 18 there? LUKE DONALD: I heard a big roar on 15, obviously, when I was over the putt. I'm not sure if it was him or someone else. I probably should have backed off that putt, because I did hear it. And, yeah, I figured Matt made birdie. I didn't know how. Someone told me he holed out from the front bunker. Again, I knew what I had to do. On 17 when I hit the tee shot, I was 1 back and I needed to birdie my last two. Q. First of all, congratulations on a great effort today. But coming into this afternoon, you were actually 9‑under on the back nine and 1‑over on the front nine. And that's kind of an unconventional way to score here at Harbour Town. What is it about that back nine that motivates you to score so well? LUKE DONALD: Is that just this week? Q. That's this week. LUKE DONALD: This week, yeah. Hard to pinpoint why. Obviously the front nine has a couple of par‑5s as opposed to just one on the back nine, which is quite a hard hole, 15. It's atypical, but again I don't know how to describe it, just happened this week. Q. A lot of the players say they like the week here to decompress after the Masters. Even though you were in the mix all weekend, were you able to relax and enjoy the week, as well? LUKE DONALD: There was a lot of pressure out there, and I felt it, for sure. But again, I felt like I hit decent shots down the stretch. It wasn't as comfortable and relaxed atmosphere today for me as it was yesterday. But it's Sunday. You are a little bit more conscious about some of the things you're working on. And that's why we practice is to keep coming‑‑ just working through the subconscious and not having to think about things. But it wasn't that relaxing, but Sundays in the final group shouldn't be. They should be tough and they should be hard. And that's what you expect. I have a couple of weeks off now to relax, and keep tightening up on some things I'm working, and get ready for THE PLAYERS. Q. Two quick things: One, did you see a 64 out there, given the conditions? And two, just why is it so hard to win, even with a lead on Sunday? LUKE DONALD: Well, 64, you know, it's always possible. Greens were reasonably soft. They weren't so hard today. I felt like they slowed them down on purpose knowing that it was going to be windy or expecting to be even windier today. The wind strength was probably similar to yesterday. But they were certainly slower, which screwed me up a bit, but maybe helped some guys that prefer slow greens, I'm not sure. Why is it hard to win? A lot of good players out there. Everyone's making a run. You can't really make mistakes, and there's more pressure. More pressure on the guy out front. And I think that's why we admire Tiger so much, because he is so good at closing it down when he had the lead. I kind of played‑‑ other than a couple of bad swings, Tiger was very good at just making the other guys make mistakes, and just playing his game. And obviously 69 with a couple‑shot lead is usually good enough. But Matt played a hell of a round. JOHN BUSH: Luke, we appreciate your time. LUKE DONALD: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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