Luke Donald makes breakthrough at Augusta

Luke Donald makes breakthrough at Augusta

Donald, 33, has spent his entire career trying desperately to convince his critics, and not least himself, that length doesn't matter. That he can compete on 7,000-yard monster courses like Augusta and beat the likes of Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Alvaro Quiros and Mickelson. His average drives plop down to rest at 272 yards. That's 40 yards behind Watson. But Donald's confirmation and reward came in February with a victory at the Accenture Match Play in Tucson on Ryo Ishikawa Helps Japanese Victims a course that was supposed to beat him up."My win at Tucson showed that I can compete on a long course, no matter what," Donald said. "We can't all be as long as Dustin and Bubba but there's more to it that just hitting it a long way. You've got to have a short game and get the ball in the hole."

That's just how Donald can break his drought in the majors at the Masters: By plotting his way around Augusta and relying on his stellar wedge play and dead-eye putting.Winning the Par 3 contest proves his short game is unparalleled. World No. 1 Martin Kaymer thinks Donald's game around the greens might even be sharper than Phil Mickelson's. "Luke probably is the best in the world in the short game at the moment," he said. "I've played with Phil a few times and he is unbelievable. But what Luke is doing at the moment is a joke, you know. Wherever he is, you know that he will make his up-and-down and hole out."Donald has failed to improve on his 2005 Masteres debut, when he finished third while playing the last eight holes in six under par. This week he plans to channel the memory of that storming finish."You can still feed off it," he said. "If you have done it before you can do it again." Donald is now full of self-belief. He won in Madrid last year, finished second in the BMW, third in the Wales Open and played a staring role as a wild card pick in Europe's victorious Ryder Cup team at Celtic Manor. Then came Tucson in February, his eighth career victory and the third on the PGA Tour, which broke a five-year drought.