DUBAI // Even for someone of Laura Davies’s standing, the size of the task appeared rather daunting.
The Englishwoman has a gilded professional career that spans 30 years and 85 victories worldwide, including four major championships, a haul that this year elevated her into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
So when Davies carded another second successive four-under par at the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters on Thursday, to move second on the leaderboard and two shots off defending champion Shanshan Feng at the midway point, she would have been expected to relish taking aim at the event's prize scalp. Yet that was not exactly the case.
“Depends who the target is. Unfortunately it’s Shanshan, and she’s a course specialist, and shoots millions under par every day,” Davies said. “It’s hard to upset Shanshan. She just cruises.”
Typically, she breezes around Emirates Golf Club. China’s only major champion, Feng is seeking to become the first player to win the tournament for a third time, having triumphed on debut in 2012 and then again 12 months ago.
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Davies, meanwhile, has not tasted victory in five years, a drought that prompted her to concede earlier this week that she would swap her weighty roll of honour for just one more success. The wait has also added to the nerves, despite the considerable back catalogue of experience from which to draw on.
“Absolutely. It’s like starting all over again,” Davies said. “I was nervous on the first tee because I thought, ‘now you’ve had a good start don’t blow it’. And I nailed one down the middle. Tomorrow will probably be the same.
“But I’ve backed up a good round, which has been something I haven’t been doing. And if I keep playing like I’m playing, then the nerves will gradually go away. If it comes down to the last four holes Saturday evening, obviously you’ll be nervous, but you have to be in position to put yourself in that place.”
Davies was just thankful to be in the mix, given her troublesome left ankle was diagnosed on Wednesday as a torn tendon. It had reduced her power this week, which she described as perhaps aiding the process of finding more fairways, which in turn has helped her problematic putting. Every cloud, eh?
“Swings and roundabouts really,” she said.
The on-course physio could be busy this weekend, since Feng required treatment to her neck on the 17th, although she shook it off to post a second bogey-free 67 in succession.
Given her record around the Majlis, maybe it is the only way her rivals could reel Feng in during the next two days. At 10-under, she is almost halfway to the best tournament total, the 21-under she set three years ago. The intervening period has slightly jaded the memory, though.
“Was I 21? I forgot,” Feng said. “Well, I’m not really thinking about it. And every year the conditions are a little bit different so it doesn’t really matter if I break it or not. Like I said earlier, I just want to enjoy and be relaxed this week as I always do in Dubai. I’ve had two good days so far, and there’s another two days to go.”
Relaxed seems her default mode in Dubai, something that certainly was not lost on Davies.
“She’s so easy-going and lovely,” she said. “You can’t try and be mean to her because she’s too nice. You just have to take what she shoots at you and see if you can beat it by one.”
jmcauley@thenational.ae
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