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TARGET WORLD CHALLENGE

December 15, 2006

Geoff Ogilvy

THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA: Second Round

DAVE SENKO: Geoff, maybe just get us started, 2-under today and 6-under for this tournament heading into the weekend. Just take a quick look at your day and how things went out there.
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, I played quite well, up and down. I birdied the first two holes, which was nice. The first one out of the trees, which was pretty good. 2-iron into the trees on the 1st isn't the way you want to start. I got away with it a little bit.
I birdied the first two holes, Freddie birdied the first three holes. I thought we were going to have a great day, and we kind of hit a bit of stalemate until the end of the front nine.
I made a putt on 10 that probably -- well it should have gone in but if it missed it was going to go a long way past. Then played quite well the back nine, actually missed a few putts, I think. Could have had three or four better if I would have had a really good putting nine. I'm going to be two or three back or something, I think. We'll see.

Q. What was your putt length on 10 and 11?
GEOFF OGILVY: 10 was 25 feet probably, and it was going to go 30-something, but it stopped at the hole. It was a two-putt. 11 was a two-putt from 20 feet. I had a really good shot, a really good eagle putt actually, left it short, but it was a tap-in.
And then my other birdie was a tap-in on the par 5. I got lucky; I drove it in the trees and wedged it out, wedged it to about a foot. But all the other putts were short ones.

Q. How about 1 and 2, do you remember the length?
GEOFF OGILVY: 1 was six feet maybe, five feet, 2 was a two-putt on a par 5. All in all, it was pretty good.

Q. Talk about the drop on the curb.
GEOFF OGILVY: I could have hit the first one but there was rocks around it. Who knows where it was going to go. Then you take the nearest point and then a club length any direction, as long as you take relief from the path, and I was lucky I had six inches of room between the path and the brush. I had no chance. It was always going to roll forward twice.

Q. How did you end up getting there? What did you hit?
GEOFF OGILVY: Off the tee?

Q. Yeah.
GEOFF OGILVY: Driver. I just pushed -- it was really quite -- well, when you're up that high, it feels like -- Freddie missed the fairway by five yards, I missed it by 25. I don't know how it went that far. It was a bad tee shot, but --

Q. And you had a really difficult stance because you were --
GEOFF OGILVY: It wasn't a very good spot. It was kind of lucky, the path -- I mean, it could have been -- if there was this much less room, I wouldn't have been able to take a drop because the drop would have been in that stuff, and I would have had to just swing it at the stones around the ball and hoped it came out good, which it might have done. It wouldn't have been very good for my golf club. But it turned out the slope was right so I could drop it twice, it rolls and I could place it, and I mean, it was a difficult wedge out, but it was better than hitting it when there was rocks around the ball. It turned out okay.

Q. What did you hit the rest of that hole?
GEOFF OGILVY: I hit it up to there with a 9-iron. It was actually on TV, dropped it from right next to the path, but I actually had just a better lie. I hit a 9-iron out about 100 yards, I guess, and had about 100 to the pin or something and hit it to about this far, I guess. I got away with it.

Q. And the relief was from what?
GEOFF OGILVY: From the cart path.

Q. Is there an element of risk when the ball is sort of placed like that that if you mis-hit it, not so much where the ball might go but in giving yourself an injury because it looked like you caught it really flush but there was a lot of power on the shot, and if something goes wrong and it jars that you could do yourself some harm?
GEOFF OGILVY: Not with where I played it from. If I had to play it from where it was originally, that wouldn't have been too good. There was some quite decent-sized stones there. It would have been bad for my golf club, and potentially there were some risks. From where I hit it there was some pebbles and stuff, but it didn't seem anything substantial enough. I wouldn't have hit it if I felt there was going to be an injury involved. There's always a risk I guess when you've got rocks around.

Q. Are you a sill surprised at all that 2-under today but you're still within only a couple strokes of the lead?
GEOFF OGILVY: Yes and no. I mean, it seems like there's lots of birdies out there but it's very easy to make a bogey pretty quick, too. Yes and no. The weather is so perfect, I mean, but there's only 16 guys. Normally there's 156 guys and you'll take three 65s. 16 guys there's less chances for that. They are the best players in the world, but they can't do it every day. I feel fortunate. I thought 9- or 10-under would be leading at the end of the day, so I feel fortunate I'm only a couple back.

Q. Off the top of your head, who do you think has played more since the U.S. Open, you or Mickelson?
GEOFF OGILVY: Oh, only because of the last few weeks I would have played more. I didn't play very much -- I played about five regular tournaments after the U.S. Open to the TOUR Championship, but I played a full schedule since then, a few in Australia and the Grand Slam and this one. I haven't played a lot on purpose. It was influenced by having a baby, too. I would have played a few more weeks without that.

Q. I ask that to basically lead toward next year. How fresh do you think you are heading into '07?
GEOFF OGILVY: I think really good. I mean, I had nine weeks off after Akron influenced by the baby. I would have gone over and played the American Express over in Europe.
Pretty fresh, I feel pretty ready to go. I wish there was probably four weeks between here and Mercedes instead of two. My golf is decent. It's a pretty good place to start the year. We're going to go there a couple days early. It's a serious tournament but a relaxing one at the same time, Practice rounds in carts. Then I'll have a couple weeks off after Sony, so I'll be pretty fresh by the time I really get going.

Q. Do you think there's any link to the fact that Stewie has won that three years in a row and Stewie is one of the few people in that field who plays a pretty full schedule in November and December?
GEOFF OGILVY: I think the reason Stewart wins that tournament because if Stewart ever gets into trouble and he out-thinks because he hasn't practiced for a few weeks by the time he gets into Mercedes so he has time to out-think it. There must be something in it definitely because he plays his best every time he gets to Mercedes.
Someone will beat him one day. Hopefully it's me next year. I don't know, maybe he's fresher than a lot of guys. It's not like the old days it used to be guys would lob up in Hawaii and they hadn't seen their clubs since October. They hadn't touched them for three months, but it's different now, there's so much stuff to play in. Especially the guys who are in Mercedes, they play these silly runs at the end of the year, so they're relatively fresh.

Q. But he was thinking he, too, was a little sharper just having played seriously the PGA or The Masters or the Open or whatever he was doing?
GEOFF OGILVY: Probably. I don't know because like the Australians, it's unlucky that we have to play in December but lucky because it keeps us fresh for the start of the year, too. That might have an influence, playing high competitive golf really up to the start of the year.

Q. Are you encouraged to play?
GEOFF OGILVY: We're always encouraged to play in Australia. It's home.

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