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MASTERS TOURNAMENT


April 11, 2014


Luke Donald


AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

Q.  Are you hoping the wind howls the next couple hours?
LUKE DONALD:  The forecast was to be a little windy this afternoon.  5‑over doesn't have much of a chance.  You don't want to be looking at just making cuts, but after yesterday's disaster, it was a good come back today and a little bit more grinding.

Q.  Talk about the mentality you had to come into today to try and pick up a few shots in really tough conditions.  Did you have to be a little more aggressive, did you have to make some choices that maybe you wouldn't have made otherwise?
LUKE DONALD:  Well, yeah, 7‑over, I had to be a little bit more aggressive on certain holes.  I did that for the most part.  I made five birdies out there today.  Really had a hard little grind today.
I had a bunch of 1‑putts and getting up‑and‑down when I needed to, just because I want to play here on the weekend.  Obviously, it's tough to watch Bubba, he's played extremely well.  It was nice to put in a solid round today and hopefully give myself a chance to be here on the weekend.

Q.  When Bubba is playing so well, does that help you at all today?
LUKE DONALD:  It didn't yesterday.
(Laughter.)
You can see why he's had some success around here.  Obviously hitting wedge and sand wedge into a lot of holes and I'm hitting 6‑iron, it's a big advantage.  And he spins his irons a tremendous amount, with the greens only get firmer and firmer.
So when he's controlling his ball as well as he is right now, it's going to be tough to catch him if he keeps playing like that.

Q.  What was your best up‑and‑down today?  You talked about grinding, what was your best up‑and‑down today?
LUKE DONALD:  Coming down the stretch, probably 12, I thought I hit a pretty good shot, got on top of the bunker, it came back into that bunker and almost had no shot.  Managed to kind of skip it through the fringe and get up‑and‑down, keep momentum there.
I 1‑putted 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.  So I was grinding.  I was just off the edge of the greens, but again that's probably me being a little bit more aggressive to some of these pins, not playing to the middle and taking them on.  I kind of had to do that.

Q.  Was it driver on 17 or 3‑wood?
LUKE DONALD:  Driver.

Q.  Is that new?
LUKE DONALD:  That's something that I found a few years ago that driver has the right amount of loft to go through the grass.  3‑wood seems to get a little more caught up.  I've used it plenty of times.  I even holed one on 15 a few years ago using a driver.  So it's a club that's worked well for me.

Q.  Would it be tougher to miss the cut at the Masters because you've had this eight months in affect build‑up, whereas the other Majors kind of come pretty quickly on top of one another.
LUKE DONALD:  It's just disappointing in general if I happen to not be here.  Obviously, I've been working hard on the game, working on a few changes.  Yesterday every time I got out of position, I compounded my mistakes.  You just can't do that around here.
Then obviously I had a two‑shot penalty on No. 9 which didn't help.  But, yeah, I'm not really thinking about the big eight month break so much.

Q.  There was apparently a patron that reported to an official about the penalty yesterday.
LUKE DONALD:  I was very aware that I did it and I knew that I had pretty good idea that it was a penalty.  I didn't want to talk to an official until I got in, just because I didn't want to concentrate on that, I wanted to just play my game and deal with it before I signed my scorecard.
So as soon as I got in, Fred Ridley was there and I brought it up to him immediately and, unfortunately, it was a penalty.

Q.  How did that come up?  What was the circumstance that you ended up with that grounding the club in the bunker.
LUKE DONALD:  Yeah, I hit my shot, didn't get out.  I just carelessly‑‑ I can't remember the last time I didn't get a ball out of a bunker‑‑ I've done it twice this week already.  So I just carelessly swiped the sand.
As soon as I did it, I knew that probably wasn't the right thing to do.  It was stupid on my part.  It might not be a great rule, as rules go, because testing the surface, you're testing it on the first shot.  But, anyway, it's a rule and I knew it and I shouldn't have broken it.

Q.  What will you do, if you're not playing this weekend, what will you do?
LUKE DONALD:  I will go back home and spend the weekend at home and then head up to Hilton Head on Monday.

Q.  Good record there, don't you?
LUKE DONALD:  I like that place, yeah.

Q.  Bubba didn't play well last year after winning in 2012.  What is it about this place that a guy can do that?  Is it the nature of the golf course where it can expose you?
LUKE DONALD:  It is.  He's playing extremely well.  He's hardly missed a shot the last couple days.  He's dominating the course with his length and just leaving it in the right spots.
He's not taking too much risk on.  When he has wedge and sand wedge, he can go fire at some pins.  He's been able to stop it.
His start lines on all his shots are just perfect right now.  He puts a lot of curve on the ball, but he's starting it in the right direction and it's just curving back into the middle every time.
He can move it both ways and being a left hander moving left‑to‑right around some of these holes is a lot easier.  It shows because Phil's had a lot of success here, too.
For a right‑hander to control a draw is a little bit harder for a left hander to control a fade.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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