Luke Donald is aiming to improve his long game ahead of this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship after some advice from arguably the game’s greatest ever player.
World Number One Donald enjoyed a dream year in 2011, winning the Race to Dubai, the US PGA Tour money list, his first World Golf Championship and the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
But a first Major Championship still eludes him, so the Englishman has turned to the man with more of those on his CV than anyone else.
“Certainly I do believe the key to winning, for me to try and contend and win Majors, is to continually improve my driving,” said Donald.
“I think Majors become trickier around the greens, and they are firmer, smaller greens usually. It's more prevalent to hit it in the fairways at Majors. It's something Jack Nicklaus told me last year - he thinks he was successful because he drove it very well. I think that's the area I would love to continue to improve.
“I certainly made some pretty good improvements last year, but I still have a long way to go.”
Donald will have to wait until the Masters Tournament in April to see if Nicklaus – who won 18 Majors – has set him on the right track.
For the time being, Donald’s target is to make a flying start to his Race to Dubai defence, as he prepares to line up alongside Tiger Woods and US Open Champion Rory McIlroy at Abu Dhabi Golf Club.
“It’s a great draw,” said Donald. “I’m always excited to be in those kind of marquee groups, and it will be good to play with Tiger again. Obviously it's been a while, and got to play with Rory a few weeks ago in Dubai and looking forward to that pairing. It’s a fantastic group.
“Last year was a hugely important one for me in terms of dealing with pressure and being able to come out on top when it mattered.”
As well as plenty of celebrating on the course, Donald also had reason to be cheerful off it as his wife Diane gave birth to their second child.
But the Scottish Open champion revealed his preparation has not been too badly affected by sleepless nights.
“Certainly there are always challenges with new babies but ours has been very good in terms of sleeping very well,” he added. “It has not really been a distraction in terms of that. It's been another blessing really.
“I had four and a half, five weeks off, since my last event, and put the clubs away for three weeks - didn't touch them and the last couple of weeks, just been working on very similar stuff worked on last year, really trying to get my swing a little bit more solid, especially with the longer clubs and create a bit more consistency with that.
“The overall goal for me is to continue to improve and get better. The goal every year is to try to win the biggest events, and those are the Majors. Obviously having a year like I did last year, I did everything but win a Major in a way.
“That would be at the top of my goals, to try and win a Major. But obviously you have to put yourself into contention first.”
