Thursday 26 May 2016 20:38, UK
Luke Donald feels his game is on an "upward path" as he again demonstrated his liking for Wentworth with an opening 68 at the BMW PGA Championship.
Donald, who became only the second player after Colin Montgomerie to win back-to-back titles at the West Course in 2011 and 2012, carded three birdies on each nine while blotting his card at the ninth and 15th to lie three shots behind early leaders Scott Hend and YE Yang.
The 38-year-old enjoyed an encouraging run of form after missing out on The Masters and was in contention in the latter stages of both the RBC Heritage and the Valero Texas Open, although he missed the halfway cut in his last outing at The Players Championship.
But a return to Wentworth has galvanised the Englishman this week, and he has a great record in the European Tour's flagship event after getting off to a strong start.
"If you look at just history, if I'm playing well the first round, it usually means good things for the rest of the tournament," said Donald, who will be tournament host for the British Masters supported by Sky Sports at The Grove in October.
"It's nice to get off to a really solid start. I hit a lot of good shots out there, and I was really happy with that round. Obviously past success helps, having a lot of good memories to feed off of. Since the changes here, the course has seemed to favour my game a little bit more, and I've enjoyed some really strong finishes over the last few years.
"Certainly the last year or two have been tough, tough times, where I struggled to gain that confidence and feel comfortable. But it seems like the last couple months, I'm getting more and more comfortable the better I play, and it's nice to see some good results go with that. I feel like I am on the upward path."
Meanwhile, Shane Lowry was delighted to bounce back from a poor couple of holes as two late birdies got him back to three under par.
The Irishman followed a faultless, outward 32 with another birdie at the 12th, but he dropped a shot at the next and a wayward tee-shot at the short 14th kicked off a cart path and went out of bounds as he ran up a double-bogey five.
But Lowry, who was tied for sixth last year after finishing runner-up to Rory McIlroy in 2014, got back on track with a birdie at the tough 15th before another at the last lifted his spirits.
"It was good, I played nicely," said Lowry. "I had a bit of a slip-up in the middle of the round but I really bounced back well. Birdieing 15 and 18 was big for me, especially that putt on the last. Had I shot 70, I would have been a little disappointed because of the way I played. But yeah, I'm pretty happy.
"I do like it around here. I've said that I love coming here, and it's my favourite tournament of the year. We get looked after really well, and the golf course, I love it. It was nice crowds this morning, as well, and it's just a really enjoyable week."
