Donald on top of the world as Open task lies ahead

Donald shot the lowest round of his European Tour career, a sparkling nine-under-par 63, to take the Barclays Scottish Open by four shots at Castle Stuart near Inverness.

Playing in the land of his father and marking the fact by wearing tartan trousers, the 33-year-old English star dominated the rain-shortened event on the final day.

It was his second successive triumph in Europe and now he will try to put the icing on the cake – at Sandwich – by capturing his first major title next Sunday.

“It’s nice to get another victory – I can get used to this,” he said. “To do it on a links is even better and when I play well I tend to do reasonably well the next week.

“This was perfect preparation. It doesn’t get any better than going out and winning the week before. I’m going to be high on confidence.”

After Saturday’s wash-out cut the tournament from 72 to 54 holes, Donald first of all had to play half of his second round starting at 7am and did that in three under par to close the gap on the leaders from four to one.

Then he went out again after lunch and left the rest for dead, taking the £500,000 first prize with a 19-under-par total of 197.

With Lee Westwood coming only joint-14th Donald also stretched his lead at the top of the rankings.

And it is such a gap that Rory McIlroy – next week’s favourite following his amazing US Open win – cannot now go to No1 even if he lands back-to-back majors.

In just seven European Tour-counting starts this season Donald has now earned a staggering £2.85million.

That works out at an average of almost £410,000 per week and his career earnings on the circuit alone – he also has victories in America to his name – could go through the £10million mark this coming week.

So much for suffering “Luke Donald Disease”, the label given to him by an American writer just two years ago because he kept coming up short in big events.

Donald is looking to enjoy the Royal St George’s course a little more than he did the last time he played The Open there.

He may be a star now, but eight years ago he was thrown in at the deep end at Sandwich when he was paired with Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia.

It was only his second appearance in Europe as a professional and three previous Opens had resulted in three missed cuts.

This week, of course, he returns as one of the main attractions – the first Englishman to go into the championship as world No1 since Nick Faldo on the same course in 1993.

And even if McIlroy demands centre stage following his astounding US Open triumph, Donald knows that a lot more will be expected of him than was the case on his last visit.

His first tee nerves then were eased somewhat by the sight of Woods, holder of seven major titles already, carving into rough so thick that the ball was not found in the permitted five minutes.

Asked what went through his mind Donald, 117th in the world at the time, joked: “This guy’s rubbish! It made my drive a little bit easier once he hit it way right. I thought ‘Well, I can’t do any worse than that’.

“The crowds are quite far back, so it was only a few people looking for the ball I suppose. It was a strange scenario.”

And did he say anything to Woods?

“I think I was staying out of the way – I was pretty inexperienced then.”

Donald described all the media, security and crowd jostling for position as the ‘big zoo’ – something Woods was used to on a daily basis, but which Donald had never seen the like of before.

If judged by the scores that followed, he did not cope that well. A first round 76 was followed by a 79 and he missed the cut by five.

Woods, on the other hand, hit back from his opening triple-bogey seven to finish joint-fourth, only two shots behind shock winner Ben Curtis.

It would be 2005 before Donald finally made it through the halfway cut at The Open and another four before he managed a top 10 finish – fifth at Turnberry.

“I was very disappointed with my Open record. When I was an amateur it was good just to get near the cut, but obviously my goals have changed a little bit and that’s probably why my results have changed,” he said. “I’m not so much cuts-orientated, I’m thinking about winning the tournaments.

“You look back and wonder what could I have done differently. I think just having spent so much time in the US it was a hard transition for me.

“Coming over early and doing some preparation and practice on links golf has helped and I’ve also eight years more experience dealing with tournaments, dealing with pressure and knowing that, even if I don’t have any best golf, I’ve become a lot more patient.

“I think I would get very anxious and press too hard if I didn’t quite have my game and get frustrated easily. Now if I hit a few poor shots and make a couple of bogeys I don’t really get flustered – I know some birdies are coming.

“Obviously there’s pressure to win majors and the pressure is more from within – I would love to do that to kind of complete my record, I suppose.

“It separates a good golfer from a great golfer. If I won a major it would certainly be the icing on the cake.”

Runner-up at the Scottish Open, yesterday was Swede Fredrik Andersson Hed after he burst out of the pack with a best-of-the-week 62, while in a seven-way tie for third Scotland’s Tour rookie Scott Jamieson was the happiest man.

That was because a 10-foot birdie putt on the last gave him the one Open spot on offer, Colin Montgomerie having failed in his bid by slumping to 31st after an early burst had taken him into the joint lead.

Westwood, in contrast, was in a rage at the end over the lie he got just over the final green.

He thought he might be putting from close range for eagle, but instead had to settle for par and a 68 that left him seven adrift of the man who took the number one spot off him in a BMW PGA play-off at Wentworth in May.

“It was not that useful a week,” he said. “It was tiring with having to get up a couple of times at half four (because of the rain delays) and it would have been nice to have 20mph winds.

“I said before that if there was no wind the course was going to get murdered.

“And hopefully there won’t be any lies like that at Sandwich.”

There were four leaders with a round to go – Jamieson, compatriot Peter Whiteford, Swede Peter Hanson and Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell.

Jamieson was the only one to break 70. Whiteford fell away with a 73 and McDowell was one worse than that after running up a quadruple bogey on the long 12th.

Yorkshire’s Simon Dyson finished in 25th thanks to a final round of 67 while Richard Finch and John Parry came home in 31st and 62nd respectively.

Don’t miss our special Open preview inside the Yorkshire Post on Thursday.