Donald takes a relaxed approach
Luke Donald admits he tried to fit in too much travelling and too much golf before the US Open last month and paid the price.
England's world number one does not intend to make the same mistake again and hopes to show at next week's Open Championship that he got it right this time.He and his American wife Diana went to Italy for a six-day break before he headed to Kent last Thursday to start his build-up to golf's next major.
Now he is in Inverness for the Barclays Scottish Open at Castle Stuart and the 33-year-old will go into today's second round on five under par.
That was only two off the pace, but the fact that one of the leaders was Lee Westwood - the other was Chilean Mark Tullo - meant that Donald is by no means certain to head to Sandwich at the top of the rankings still.
A Westwood win would see them swap places again six weeks after Donald took over by winning a play-off between the pair of them in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
"It was nice to take a break from it," he said of his trip to Italy.
And on playing the week before The Open he added: "I thought there were a lot of pros.
"Being on a links again (the event was at the inland Loch Lomond from 1996 to last year) you're spending an extra week practising on that style of golf course.
"This is really something I'm not accustomed to that much during the year and The Open Championship is the exception, so to get in an extra week of practise on links in tournament conditions under those pressures is very helpful to me."
Especially when his Open record shows only one top-10 finish - fifth at Turnberry two years ago when he burst out of the pack on the final day - in 10 appearances.
On the first five of them he missed the halfway cut.
Westwood had an eagle and six birdies yesterday and is not worried about the possibility of winning on Sunday and then trying to do it again in the week that really matters.
Golfers winning back-to-back tournaments does not happen often, but the Worksop golfer has done it in Indonesia and Korea already this year.
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