Jamie

Donaldson

The Welshman entered at just 121st in the DP World Tour Rankings but he hinted at some form with last week’s T20 at the Irish Open. He remained locked in this week and a hot putter was the key. Donaldson gained more than two strokes putting in three of the four rounds this week. Today, he sank four putts from outside of 10 feet including a 28'9" birdie bomb at the 13th. There are still a few golfers still out on the course but this finish should also secure his spot in next week’s Open Championship via the qualifying series.

The Welshman picked off six birdies today including back-to-back circles to end his day. It concluded a week that featured 17 birdies and a trio of eagles. “Am I disappointed? No. I played really well for four days. There’s not many shots, really, that I would want to play again... Yeah, I’ve had a great week. I played really well. I really fancied my chances today. I really felt great going out. But I’ve shot 6-under. I can’t do much more, so quite happy.” Donaldson was attempting to win his first event since the 2014 Czech Masters but will have to settle for a share of second place. This will bump him from 92nd to 33rd in the Race to Dubai standings.

Donaldson stumbled out of the gate with three bogeys and just one birdie before the turn. He remained calm and the scoring corrected itself on the homeward nine. That included a birdie-birdie-eagle finish to move back into red numbers for the day. The eagle was his fourth of the week after he posted a rare, three-eagle effort on Friday. Searching for his first win since the 2014 Czech Masters, he knows he’ll need to clean things up a bit on Sunday, “I need to play slightly better than I did today but I wasn’t bad today overall. Great finish which kept me in the tournament. I need to do more of the same, take it all on and see what happens.”

Donaldson fought through a tough start, “Bogeyed the first and had two great up-and-downs on the third and fourth. Could have been easily 3-over after four. Then managed to find momentum.” From there, he holed out for eagle at the par-4 seventh and added two more eagles before his day was over. “I’ve struggled to make three in a year to be honest, never mind three in 12 holes or whatever it was. Yeah, it’s crazy... This game is daft. Like I say, you never know what’s coming.” Donaldson arrived with two top 10s in 16 starts this season to find himself at 92nd in the Race to Dubai. He would soar inside of the top 50 on that list if he can remain inside of the top 5 by week’s end.

The 45-year-old Welshman, best known for securing the winning point for Europe in the 2014 Ryder Cup, notched his first podium of the season at the recent Cazoo Classic, finishing T-3 at 14-under 274, two strokes behind winner Calum Hill. The world No. 177 is riding a wave of three straight made cuts, and on the season stands at 10-for-14 with one other top 10 – a T-5 finish at the Qatar Masters – and three other finishes inside the top 16. He’ll undoubtedly look to parlay his recent momentum into his upcoming performance in Prague, where he won his last title at the 2014 Czech Masters. He finished at 14-under 274 in 2014, beating fellow countryman Bradley Dredge by two shots. This week marks Donaldson’s sixth start in the event, and he’s made the cut three times although he did miss the weekend in his last appearance in 2019.

The 45-year-old Welshman fired four straight sub-par rounds – 65-67-64-69, 15 under – for his third straight finish inside the top 20. He also finished T-16 at the Kenya Open and T-5 at the Qatar Masters last month. However, Donaldson withdrew from the Kenya Savannah Classic after shooting a 71 in the first round and hitting what has been termed one of the most unusual shots seen on the European Tour: Donaldson’s tee shot at the seventh hit a tree and sailed back toward the tee box, over his head and he had to play his next shot from beside the sixth green, roughly 30 yards away from the No. 7 tee box. He managed a double bogey and rebounded with four straight birdies on Nos. 9-12. The three-time Euro Tour winner is coming off a solid 2020 season where he made 13 cuts in 19 events and posted four top-10 finishes including a solo second at the South African Open in December and a T-3 at the Cyprus Open in October.

The Welshman insisted after his lap that his focus was singular this week; he is looking to win rather than rescue his card for 2020. As it currently stands he is 102nd in the projected Race to Dubai rankings so has climbed 33 spots, but he needs that if he is to make next week’s trip to Portugal stress-free and he hasn’t made a European Tour top three since he won the 2014 Czech Masters. He will play the final round alongside the leader Nicolas Colsaerts who leads him by four and will do so thanks to a pairs of front nine birdie braces (at the second and third then sixth and seventh), then two back nine red numbers, at the tenth and 14th, with a bogey-5 at the 13th, the toughest hole on the course.

Unlike many in the field, Donaldson has plenty of past experience at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid, playing it four times with a best of T14 (back in 2004). He’d fired in the 60s in eight of his 12 rounds there but today’s lap was his lowest by one. He made five birdies in the opening 11 holes (1, 5, 8, 9 and 11) to hit -5 with seven to play and, at that point, looked on course to challenge the leader. The Welshman made another gain at 15 to get it to -6 but played his last three in 1-over after a lone bogey of the day at 17. He ranks 134th on the Race to Dubai but has two top tens in his last six starts. A morning tee-time on day two will give him another shot at the lead.

As a veteran of the European Tour the Welshman has plenty of course experience. Back in 2002 he was T28, he missed the cut in 2003, was T14 in 2004 and back to missing the weekend in 2005. What about at altitude? He has a pair of top 20s in Kenya, a bunch of top 20s on the Johannesburg high veldt and three top tens in Crans. In Spain he has missed his last two cuts but before that was on a run of 9-for-9 that included five top 15s. His form has improved in recent weeks but he’s still just 134th in the seasonal rankings. His run into this week reads: 9-MC-5-35-27-MC.

There’s a good chance the Welshman might be peering back into the mists of time this week because the best women of Europe and America will be fighting it out for the Solheim Cup this week at Gleneagles and that, of course, is rather familiar territory for Donaldson – he was responsible for the point which sealed the Ryder Cup for Europe there five years ago. He was fifth in this event back in 2009 but rather more important, perhaps, is the state of his form and he has found some in recent weeks. He was T9 in the Scottish Open and T5 in the Scandinavian Invitational before T35 in the European Masters.