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THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 17, 2015

Geoff Ogilvy

ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND

Q. Obviously a very good finish there in this round and you got some back from yesterday and put yourself in good position.
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, it was. I mean, it's just as into the wind probably as it was yesterday, but it's into the wind off the right, which makes a massive difference for a right-handed golfer and makes a massive difference on this golf course. You can kind of have it going away from the out of bounds, not going towards the out of bounds like it was yesterday. So I think there will be guys that have December he want scores on the back nine. It's playing pretty long, but as I said, right to left is a comfortable wind for a right-handed golfer. Yeah, it's nice to finish that way. 17 is stealing a birdie, really. Just trying to make 4 there if I can, to make a 3 -- I hit it a bit further than I wanted to and actually got up onto the green. That's a bit of a bonus. Yesterday it felt like we got the wrong end of the draw, but overall it feels like maybe we're going to end up with the better end of the draw because we didn't have to play in the rain this morning, which was a big result for us. If it was just a little bit less rain and we'd have to play in that, that would have been pretty nasty, but we missed it. Hopefully from our perspective it gets really windy this afternoon and I'll have fun watching it on TV.

Q. What did you hit into 17?
GEOFF OGILVY: 6-iron, from quite a long way out. It was a bit of a flier, run-out shot up from the left rough. The left rough on 17 is pretty doable. Like you just lose a bit of control. I was just trying to run it up to the front of the green and hopefully get up-and-down for par, really, and obviously got a nice bounce and got right up on the top, so bonus.

Q. What's it like out on especially 11?
GEOFF OGILVY: 11 is really difficult today. Is that what you mean, like playing the hole? 11 is really difficult because there's a big stand there. It's pumping off the left, but when you're standing next to something it feels like the wind comes back at something. When you stand on the tee it feels like it's right to left, but it's clearly not. It's clearly going that way. It's really weird hitting a shot when you feel it off the right but you know it's coming off the left. Does that make sense? But yeah, you just want to get it on the green, that shot, because the bunkers are obviously horrendous and obviously the back is really bad, so it's tricky. It's not impossible, but it's tricky, and if it does get 10, 15 miles an hour stronger that's going to be a tough green to putt. The pin is safe. There's going to be no dodginess because they've put it in the right spot, obviously, but it's the windiest place on the course and you feel like you're getting blown around when you putt. It's a tough part of the course.

Q. What would it be like if it gets up to 30 miles an hour tomorrow?
GEOFF OGILVY: Well, it'll be tough.

Q. How much tougher? What happens on this course once it's blowing 30?
GEOFF OGILVY: What's it blowing right now, 15?

Q. I think so, yeah.
GEOFF OGILVY: Double that. It would be pretty hard. As I said, it's a sympathetic direction. Down off the left on the front and in off the right, if you're going to have a strong wind, it's the nicest one to have. But it's still really hard. Putting may be the hardest part because it's just underappreciated how hard five-, six-, seven-footers are. A right-to-left putt can go left or right. It could go anywhere if you get the gust at the wrong time. It's going to be really hard if it gets a lot windier, especially out that end of the course. It's really windy -- 11th green seems to be like the windiest place in the world.

Q. (Inaudible.)
GEOFF OGILVY: Well, everything we've seen is normal except for the rain and the flood. Well, the rain not, but the flood part. I was surprised this morning to see, because I walked across from the hotel at like 6:15, and it looked fine. Obviously it was fine because the first group hit off. And then all of a sudden they got, whatever, 12 millimetres in 12 minutes or something, and it was like water was coming out of the ground. And it's still there. I didn't know that could happen here, to be fair.

Q. It takes a little while.
GEOFF OGILVY: Obviously it takes a while. There was obviously a bit in reserve because it had rained last week, I guess. 1960 I saw this morning. A historian. Apart from having -- we don't usually have delays. Ironically we've had a delay the last two times we've been at St. Andrews. That's the weird part. But as far as the crazy downwind and the crazy crosswinds and the into the wind, that's par for the course, really. That's what you expect. That's what I expect anyway.

Q. Do you have any trouble dealing with the luck of the draw?
GEOFF OGILVY: You go out with the best intentions to have the best attitude you can. Sometimes it's hard to continue that while you're out there because it doesn't matter who you are, guys out there feel like they're being hard done by. You feel like you're on the wrong side of the draw when it's windy, regardless if you are or you're not. Does that make sense? It's pretty horrible when you turn around on 12 and you've got seven holes into a pumping wind. You're like, really, I've got to do this, and I've just had a difficult front nine because it's been hard off the left. It's tough for everyone, but you kind of expect that here, I think.

Q. What did you do with the break?
GEOFF OGILVY: I went back to the room. I mean, that's the fortune -- I'm saying at the hotel. Normally we would have a house or something and it would be probably not doable, but I had breakfast and wandered back across and sat in the room for a couple of hours and walked back. It was nice.

Q. Is it nice to see some of those mid-range putts going in?
GEOFF OGILVY: It is. The putting is definitely -- it's been trending the right way most of the year I would say, with good patches and bad patches. Chambers I had some patches where I holed a lot of putts and I also had patches where I didn't hole many. It's just nice to hit the ball really well, and now I'm hitting the ball well enough to compete every week, and if I make a few, then I'm going to do that. Today I think I putted pretty well, really. I holed a nice one on 15, a nice one on 17. It's always nice to see a ball go in the hole when you're putting.

Q. Given you were at one stage 6-under yesterday, are you happy right now where you stand?
GEOFF OGILVY: Oh, yeah, for sure. Leaving here yesterday, it felt like I'd let a bit of an opportunity go away because it felt like this morning was going to be really hard. But again, we missed the rain and got let off because we didn't have to play in the rain. The rain and wind you can handle, but the rain is not fun. So leaving here last night I felt like it was going to be one of those 76, 77 might be a good score this morning if we played in the rain. But that kind of got adjusted when we went out there and the wind was normal St. Andrews wind, I would have thought, 15 miles an hour or something, as I said, in a relatively friendly direction. Quite happy from what I hear about the wind that's coming. I think I feel like we might end up on the good side of the draw. At least it's balanced it out a little bit, I think. Yesterday it felt like it was a bit the other way. Yeah, it's nice. Sometimes you feel like you get hosed at this tournament, but we definitely haven't been hosed. It will be fun to watch if it does get windy.

Q. When you're talking to your wife, you say, this kind of sucks, come here, play well, and I get stuck with --
GEOFF OGILVY: Well, I definitely -- there was a this sucks a little bit last night because it did feel like we were going to go out and play in the rain this morning and no one wants to play in the rain. You'd rather -- playing in wind is frustrating, but can be quite enjoyable. Playing in the rain is never enjoyable I don't think. You just get on with it if it happens. We just got let off the hook not having to play in the rain, or just got lucky it rained that hard.

Q. So is it fair to say you might have been excited about the fact that you teed off at 10:00 or whatever it was?
GEOFF OGILVY: I was very excited when they suspended play, I must say, because that probably meant straight away that we weren't going to hit many shots in the rain, which was nice.

Q. What did you see when you were walking back to the hotel, how much standing water?
GEOFF OGILVY: 17 was incredible, because 17 has got a lot of ripples in it, and they were all full. I'd never seen standing water like that here. But then again, I don't come here that often, but I didn't think it could do that, this place.

Q. Did the course play that much different being that wet, especially the speed of the greens?
GEOFF OGILVY: They were a little bit slower maybe, but they were a very sensible speed for kind of the course, where we're at. We were making pitch marks a little bit, but it doesn't make that much difference really. It gets greener when it gets wet, but it doesn't really get that much softer. A well-hit shot you can stop, not like '05 or '10 when it gets really fiery, but it didn't change too much from yesterday I don't think. A smidge.
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