Donald is ready to take his game to the next level  PGATOUR.com Correspondent KAPALUA, Hawaii -- As his lengthening shadow from a perfect island sunset painted the practice putting green at the Plantation Course late Saturday afternoon, Luke Donald, the part-time artist and full-time professional golfer, sought to hone the invisible brush strokes separating him from a season-opener worth framing. The six shots by which he trails leader Vijay Singh in the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship he could trace to the unforced errors he has suffered on the slippery and subtle slopes of Kapalua Resort's putting surfaces. Four three-putts and a maddening four-putt account for the scoring gap. 
"I'm right up with Vijay if you take those away," the native Brit said without knowing how accurate his estimate would be by day's end. With his 2-under-par 71 in the third round -- despite that four-jack and 36 putts overall -- Donald is one of just three players to break par all three days on the Plantation Course, yet he is seventh in the standings at 5-under-par 214. Thus was he motivated to labor overtime, not only because he still harbors a desire to win this week, but because he expects more wins of himself in the future. "The goal is to win more tournaments, and I think it's time for me to win more and, hopefully, start contending more often to win majors," said Donald, 29, winner of two PGA TOUR events, including the '06 Honda Classic that earned him a coveted trip to Maui. Of course, he could only lament the missed opportunities that may ultimately prevent him from driving off with a new Mercedes-Benz. Golf's errors can never be erased or whitewashed, only absorbed with the hope that wisdom is some future byproduct. He'd already struggled with his putting when he arrived at the par-4 third hole Saturday and eyed a slick 25-foot downhill putt for birdie that would have moved him within three of Singh. He left the first effort six feet short, knocked the next three feet by, and then missed the comebacker for bogey. To his credit he birdied the fifth and sixth to get the strokes back, showing maturity that should serve him well as he begins his sixth season with his highest world ranking, ninth. It also should help in domestic areas as he prepares to wed longtime girlfriend, Diane Antonopoulos, in June in Santorini, Greece. Donald can sense that he is getting closer to the next level, especially after a career-best 10 top-10 finishes in '06, including a tie for third in the PGA Championship at Medinah Country Club not far from his adopted hometown of Chicago. A Northwestern University graduate, Donald dealt with the pressure of playing in front of a partisan crowd and joining eventual champion Tiger Woods in the final pairing of the final round admirably. Woods beat him by six strokes that afternoon, but he didn't beat him up. Donald went on to be a contributor on another winning European Ryder Cup team, and finished sixth or better in his last three starts to earn more than $3 million for the first time and end up a career-best ninth on the PGA TOUR money list. "It was all positive (at the PGA). I saw that my good golf was as good as his golf, but I also saw where he had another gear," Donald said. "He willed the ball into the hole at times. It was impressive. I didn't come away from that discouraged at all. I think I learned from that and the next time I will be more comfortable in that position." Donald owns a degree in art theory and practice, but he's committed to hard work and practice in a sport that usually rewards such sacrifice, though there are no guarantees. But Donald's desire to create prettier scorecards has prevented him from crafting expressions on canvas. It has been about a year and a half since he last had the time and inclination to hover over an easel. The painstaking pursuit of par can drain a man's imagination, golf being its own abstract and yet is never a finished work. Both require a level of concentration that should complement but instead compete for the same synapse. An ambitious young man, Donald yields to one at the expense of the other, though one day he might look back and see that his golf career is a tapestry that best exemplified his innate talents. "It's a process getting to the next level, and then the next, but I can see myself getting there if I do the work. You get more comfortable the more you're out here, and your expectations change. Mentally, I'm getting stronger and my game is getting better, and I'm going to try to do everything to be the best player I can. "I've got a long way to go," he added, "but it starts with a belief in yourself, and I believe that I am on the right track." And working in the right medium, too. |
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