Donald confident heading to the Open

No Scottish Open champion has ever gone on to win The Open seven days later - but Luke Donald feels in the mood to change that at Sandwich this week.

The first Englishman to head into golf's oldest major as world number one since Nick Faldo in 1983 could not have sent a louder message to Rory McIlroy and the rest than he did in Inverness on Sunday.
Donald produced the lowest round of his European Tour career - a dazzling nine under par 63 - to win his third title of the year by four shots from Swede Fredrik Andersson Hed.
Five of the world's top nine, but not McIlroy, were in the field and the 33-year-old finished the rain-shortened 54-hole event 19 under par.
He admitted the soft conditions left the new venue "there for the taking", but as an act of throwing down the gauntlet it could hardly have been more impressive.
"I see it as all positive," he said. "I'll be high on confidence, I'm obviously hitting the ball nicely and to do it on a links course is even better.
"That's why I decided to play in Scotland this year. There's always a little added pressure when you're number one, but hopefully I've proved I can handle that.
"Obviously next week will be different, but this was the best way to prepare.
"It's nice to get another victory - I think I can get used to this!"
This was Donald's third win of the season and his second in a row in Europe after the play-off victory over Lee Westwood at Wentworth in May that took him to the top of the rankings for the first time.
His lead is now such that McIlroy cannot take over even if he makes it back-to-back major titles on Sunday. Only Westwood, joint 14th on Sunday night, can overtake Donald.
Not that the new champion, also chasing his first major, intends to let it happen.
"The challenge is always to have your game the week of a major," he added.
"Looking at the history of how I've played I like going on runs - when I play well I tend to play well the next week.
"It's just managing those expectations, not getting too ahead of myself and still sticking to the processes of what I need to do to improve.
"I'll still practise pretty hard. The ground, I'm sure, is a little bit firmer than it was this week, so I'll be working on some short-game stuff, getting a feel for the speed of the greens."
He was not planning to go out onto Royal St George's on Monday, having practised on the course before travelling north, and will make a late decision on whether to play a full round on Tuesday or limit it to nine holes.
Westwood did not feel he had got all he wanted out of Castle Stuart because of the weather and also because the rain delays meant getting up at the crack of dawn three of the four days - including Saturday when not a shot was struck.
Donald had to do the same, though, and commented: "I feel fresh enough to be able to play as much as I need to."
Westwood, third and second in the last two Opens, said he had hoped for "a nice 20mph wind" to hone his game.
Instead it was relatively calm and wet, but his mood was not helped by a shocking lie he found in the rough just over the final green.
"Hopefully there'll be none like that at Sandwich," he stated.
Graeme McDowell, last year's US Open champion, was still in contention until he put two drives into gorse on the long 12th and ran up a quadruple bogey nine.
The Ulsterman fell all the way back to joint 42nd.
Playing partner and joint 36-hole leader Scott Jamieson slipped into a seven-way tie for third, but the Tour rookie still had something to celebrate - his 10-foot birdie putt on the last earned him the Open spot up for grabs.
The 27-year-old said: "I wasn't sure how important that putt was and I can't believe I'm in The Open - it's great.
"First major, hopefully many more to come."
He got the place because his world ranking of 203rd was better than that of Chilean Mark Tullo (232), Austrian Martin Wiegele (305) and Italian Lorenzo Gagli (353), the other non-exempt players on 14 under.