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TARGET WORLD CHALLENGE

December 14, 2006

Geoff Ogilvy

THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA: First Round

DAVE SENKO: Real quick, Geoff, give us a quick rundown on your 68.
GEOFF OGILVY: I guess I played fairly well. I birdied the 1st hole. I bogeyed the 2nd hole, and after that it was pretty good, really, for the next 15 holes.
I hit it quite nicely, had a few bad shots I guess on the back nine, but I was chipping very well. I hit some very good chips out of the rough and was putting quite nicely and everything was all good, and then I hit it in a bad spot on the 18th and made a double, which was annoying.

Q. Can you go through what happened on 18? We were in here with Tiger so we didn't get a chance to see it.
GEOFF OGILVY: I hit a perfect drive with a 3-wood. I had 170 yards to the pin, I hit 7-iron, I hit it bad. There might have been mud on the ball, but it was a pretty bad shot. It ended up on the slope of the bunker, the steepest slope -- I could hardly even stand on it, it was ridiculous. And it took me a couple to get on the green and a couple of putts, 6.

Q. First round, good way to open up for someone who hasn't played the golf course.
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, perfect, really. The weather was perfect, it was warm, you couldn't really call it a wind. There might have been a three-mile-an-hour breeze. It was perfect. I enjoyed it. I played very well except for the last hole, really, a pretty good start.
I don't know what Henrik -- Henrik probably didn't do what I did on the last hole. I've got three rounds to play, and I'm still amongst it. You can put yourself out of it on the first day but you can't win it, so I'm still there.

Q. What do you have to do, do you think, for this next year after having a great year last year to make sure you go on the same path and continue to build on what you did last year and winning that major? Is there anything you can pinpoint from last season that helped you with that, and what do you need to do to keep doing to make sure you continue that success?
GEOFF OGILVY: I don't know, I've just got to keep doing what I've been doing, I guess. Work out if there's anything that I don't like that I do and fix that and try and work out what I did do right and try and do that again. So I guess I'm answering your question. I haven't really thought about it yet. I know there's plenty of areas of my game that I think could be better than they are.
I made some nice putts when I needed to make them really this year. I've probably had years where I've maybe even played better, but you make putts at the right time, get it up-and-down at the right time, hit the right drive at the right time, and good things happen, and they're intangibles almost.
I could definitely play better than I did this year. When I did play well, I played really well, but when I didn't have good weeks I probably wasn't as sharp as I wanted to. If I can stay consistent and stay positive about it -- it's going to be pretty hard. I could play unbelievably well next year and not have the year I had this year. A WGC and a major, I mean, that's pretty good. I could finish Top 5 every week and not win but have played better. It's hard to measure. I just want to be a better player next year than I was this year, and if good things happen, that's good.

Q. Just curious, the reception you got when you went back to Australia recently. Was it any different going back now after winning a major?
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, it was big and it was good. The Australian Tour is a Tour that has struggled for a bit of profile the last few years, they've kind of lost a little bit of their shine, but this year they really promoted it well. They got a lot of people in the gate. I was really well received. The Australian media are starting to realize the Australians are actually pretty decent at golf again. That was really fun. We had big crowds to play in front of and stuff, and that was more than normal. It was really good.

Q. Can you talk about your pairing today? How far do you guys go back, and what happened to Adam on No. 8?
GEOFF OGILVY: He kept hitting it right edge and it didn't break, and then he hit it left edge and it didn't break, then he hit it right edge and it didn't break, and he had five putts. He was three feet for three, just one of those things. Everyone does it once a year or once every few years, and he did it today. Shame.
We go back -- I met Adam when he was probably 13 or 14 maybe, so whatever that is, 11, 12 years ago. He's always been a bit of a prodigy. Always been wise beyond his years. Yeah, we've played a lot together, especially in the last few years since he's been playing over here more. It was a good pairing.

Q. Do you think that pairing was by design?
GEOFF OGILVY: You'd have to ask -- I guess Target picked the pairings. I don't know, he might have been. Everyone seemed to get appropriate pairings for themselves here. I think it might have been by design.

Q. When was the last time you played with him together?
GEOFF OGILVY: In a tournament? First round of Atlanta in the TOUR Championship we played together actually. I got one back on him today. He did it right that week.

Q. They're expecting some weather this weekend. Do you think that will change the course that much and how much you have to adjust?
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, I don't know how much weather. I think the temperature is going to drop, and that's not going to be fun if it's in the 50s and in the 30s in the morning. It makes the ball go so a lot shorter when it's cold. I don't know how much it's going to rain or blow. Then there's a lot of elevated shots here, and in big winds it would be pretty tricky. I mean, colder temperatures are just no fun to play in and the ball goes shorter. I really don't know, but I'm sure it wouldn't get any easier than it did today anyway. Today was about as easy as it's going to play.

Q. Tiger mentioned he had trouble with the speed on the greens today. Did you find that, as well?
GEOFF OGILVY: No, I putted quite well actually. My speed was pretty good. I thought they were pretty consistent.

End of FastScripts…

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