Luke's such a cool hand

What Donald does, of course, is golf his ball with more and more distinction. In the past month he finished one shot behind Fred Funk in the Players Championship, the so-called fifth major, and pulled up a commendable, albeit distant, joint third in the Masters, golf’s green major. Impressive stuff, but hardly surprising. These are, after all, just the latest details to be added to a CV packed with noteworthy statistics.

A former NCAA champion and All-American at Northwestern University, the lad from High Wycombe has played Walker and Ryder Cup golf and won on the PGA and European Tours. And he has done it all with more than a modicum of style. The owner of one of the game’s most balanced and repeatable swings, Donald has moved smoothly up golf’s ladder with nary a misstep along the way.

Throughout all the above - and amid increasing levels of frenzied slavering from newspapers south of the Border, for whom perspective has never been an abiding characteristic - he has somehow managed to retain the polite, boyish charm that must have countless mothers pointing daughters at television screens. In a bad light, Donald just about passes for someone in his mid-20s, and with the sun up high, he looks all of 17. Whenever he grins that impish grin, you can almost hear the "Aaahhhs" echoing across the land.

Still, for all his apparently gentle appeal on and off the course, Donald is a determined and gutsy competitor, one who appears to be more and more comfortable in the harshest of spotlights. Certainly, recent public utterances hint at growing assuredness and ambition.

"I do feel a lot more confident," he conceded, speaking exclusively to Scotland on Sunday in his first major interview since the Masters. "If you’d asked me two years ago if I could be No.1 in the world, I wouldn’t have believed I could. But now my inner belief is a lot stronger. I think I can, at the very worst, get into the top ten by the end of this year. Successes breed confidence, and I have had a lot of success lately. My mentality is changing."

Others have taken note of that fact.

"Getting selected for the Ryder Cup side seemed to help Luke dramatically," Colin Montgomerie confirmed. "He won the next week in Switzerland. If there was any self doubt in him, Bernhard Langer’s vote of confidence took that away.

"I see him in the locker-room. I see him with his brother. They are both very unassuming and quiet. I’m not saying they aren’t now, but both suddenly seem very much more confident about things. And why not? He’s just finished third in his first Masters, which is a huge effort. And he was second at the Players Championship, too. Fantastic.

"What impresses me most about Luke is the lack of mistakes. He’s like Langer in that respect, and Faldo and myself. He’s a similar sort of player.

"He’s not the best driver of the ball. He’s not the best iron player. He’s not the best putter. But the sum of the parts makes him very, very strong. His is a beautifully balanced action. There’s no hit or force in his swing. It’s all very thought-out."

Monty isn’t alone, either.

Donald’s contemporaries have also picked up on that improved confidence during his seemingly inexorable march into golf’s elite.

Paul Casey, who won the World Cup for England alongside Donald last year, observed: "Luke gives the appearance of being quiet and unassuming. Which he is, but there is more to him than that. He has a great sense of humour, and is a lot of fun to be with. And his Little Britain impressions are hilarious.

"His golf has been phenomenal over the last 12 months. He has always had that great precision, but he has really started to put it all together. The two wins he had in Europe last year made a huge difference to him, I think.

"Since then we have seen a new Luke - on the course anyway. Those victories seem to have allowed him to play the kind of golf he has always had in him, but had never produced over a long period."

Alongside his undoubtedly pleasant demeanour and much-admired action, there is inner steel to Donald. Twice in his chosen career he has bucked trends. First, he went to Northwestern, just outside Chicago, a place where the winters are long and hardly suited to golf. Then, last year, he made the hardly trendy decision to play more in Europe and around the world, rather than exclusively in the US.

"I didn’t know much about US colleges when I first went over to take a look," he admitted. "I almost went to Stanford, which is a bit more what you would consider a normal place for golf, but I didn’t get in. Then the coach at Stanford, who used to be at Northwestern, recommended me there. I was running out of options, to be honest.

"So I went to Evanston, and was impressed by the coach and the facilities. In retrospect it was a bit of a risk, but it has really paid off. I had a great time there.

"As for going back to Europe, that was a logical thing to do. Having played college golf in the States, it made sense to try for my card over there. And when I got it, my initial decision was made for me: there was no need to play in Europe at that time.

"Once I had won on the PGA Tour and improved as a player, the time was then right to look at Europe. I had no worries about keeping my card, and the better the player you want to be, the more you have to play in a variety of conditions. I wanted to be like Ernie Els, who is a real world player."

Another indication of Donald’s single-mindedness came at the recent Masters, from which he effectively banished his close family, other than Christian, his older brother and regular caddie.

"My family are all very supportive of my golf, but when they come to see me at events it is more about hanging out with me after rounds than watching the play. And majors are not the best places to do that. Any other week it would be fine, but four times a year I need to be focused on my golf."

Perhaps the only blip on the Donald horizon is the fact that he will arrive at St Andrews for the Open Championship in July as a player who has yet to make a cut in the world’s oldest and most important event. Still, buoyed by his play at last year’s Dunhill Links Championship, he is up for the challenge...as usual.

"I’m looking forward to being at the Old Course. It is growing on me. I didn’t like it much when I first played there, but you need to see it in a few different guises to appreciate it fully. Besides, one of my targets this year is to be competitive in at least two of the four majors. By that I mean be in with a chance to win on Sunday afternoon. And it’s about time I won again in the US. But I’ll take a victory anywhere. I’m not choosy!"

Ah, just one more thing that Luke Donald doesn’t do.