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WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

February 25, 2007

Geoff Ogilvy

TUCSON, ARIZONA

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Geoff, thank you for joining us in the media center for a few minutes at the Accenture Match Play Championship. I know you're disappointed right now, but you've got to be really proud of yourself for the way you've played in this tournament and as far as you've come.
Along with your second place finish today, you earn 2,835 FedExCup points.
GEOFF OGILVY: That's exciting (laughter). Yeah, disappointing I didn't bring the game I wanted to to the golf course today. I didn't play very well this morning. I missed some putts. I let him in.
There was four or five holes where I probably had one more shot more than I should have in a row. This afternoon I did the same thing: I started out fine and then lost the plot. My golf swing was probably deteriorating all week but I was kind of hanging in because it wasn't too windy and it wasn't too tough.
But I don't know, I can't explain missing short putts. I just missed short putts all day. I don't know what happened.

Q. You also made some long ones to kind of hang in there. Judging by your expression, you don't feel like it kind of -- you're disappointed with the way you putted.
GEOFF OGILVY: Extremely disappointed. If I would have putted well I don't think I would have lost, to be honest with you. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Henrik played his best either. He didn't hole a bunch of putts, either.
But I can think of three this morning that were embarrassing, and this afternoon there was two or three that were just not good enough.

Q. 10 and 11 in the morning?
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, two three-putts in a row. 16 just three holes ago, two holes ago, three-putts somewhere else this afternoon. I three-putted the 9th. It was just ridiculous. It's giving holes away -- not giving holes away, but losing holes I should have halved. It's just not very clever.
I'm aiming at the hole. I'm doing everything the same as I did yesterday. My golf swing was pretty poor today, really, but it's the same sort of stuff I struggle with all the time. That's just the way it goes. He wasn't at his best either, but he got it done when he needed to.

Q. Do you think that the attrition in your golf swing might have been caused by -- you played a lot of golf this week, seven rounds basically. Is it a tough week from that standpoint, keep things together?
GEOFF OGILVY: I don't know, the more golf you play the better you should hit it, shouldn't you, they say. It can work both ways. It's not because I played a lot of golf that my golf swing struggles with that sort of stuff anyway.
I mean, I'm always -- everyone has got their struggles with golf swings, and mine is getting it stuck on the way down. It's either good or stuck, one or the other, and today it was stuck. It's hard work when it's like that.

Q. Did you feel like the putting woes, was it a mechanical thing? Was it trouble reading the green? Bad luck just hitting a lot of lips? Seems like you hit a lot of lips.
GEOFF OGILVY: I just hit bad putts. 16, before, that was just a bad putt. I just hit a bad putt. I don't know, I hit some good putts, I guess, too, but I hadn't been missing -- you can't miss four- or five-footers and expect to win a tournament like this, and I missed three or four of them today.
You can't three-putt from 25 feet, or whatever it was. I had three or four three-putts today. That's just not -- that might be the difference in the end. If I two-putt those, who knows?

Q. What's going through your mind at 16 when he stiffs it to two feet?
GEOFF OGILVY: Well, I didn't know it was two feet. I knew he was close, but we can't see the hole from there. It was obviously -- I assumed he was going to make a birdie. I just figured I had to make a birdie, and I hit the right shot. I just hit the wrong putt.
Disappointing because it's nice to hit a shot like that when you need to, and then you get up there and hit a putt like that it's disappointing. Especially because that's almost it when you go down with two to play.
But with 17 playing as easy as it was you were going to have to make an eagle to win that hole because he was always going to be up next to the green in two. So it was going to be a hard hole to win 17. I didn't really want to be 2 down with two to play.

Q. What did the putt do?
GEOFF OGILVY: I just missed to the left. I started it too far left and it missed to the left.

Q. In spite of that you were still 2-up at 26 holes. Were you thinking then, I've got this?
GEOFF OGILVY: I didn't think, I've got this, but I thought I was in pretty good shape. I wasn't in great shape after 18 holes; I was in decent shape after 26 holes. I did what I needed to do on the front nine. Things were going my way.
I won a few holes. He missed a short putt, I think, on the 8th hole and he probably wasn't feeling too great walking down to the ninth hole. So it's just a ridiculous gift to three-putt the 9th hole. I can't even describe how stupid it is.
When you've got momentum on your side and you just hand it straight back to him, it was just not a very smart thing to do. I didn't do it on purpose, I just did it.

Q. Would you call that the key point in the round, in the match?
GEOFF OGILVY: I don't know, there's lots of key points. I mean, I -- 12 was bad. I mean, 12 was bad both rounds. 11 was the worst. 11 was horrific to hit it over the green from where I did because that's the only place I lose the hole is over the back.
I just hit it over the back, and it's just not where you hit it because he had a really tough two-putt. I knew he had a tough two-putt because I three-putted from where he was in the morning. It was just a stupid shot. But I wasn't trying to hit it over the green, I just didn't put the swing on it I wanted to.

Q. When did you sense your swing was sort of off, or did you feel it all day and was it a matter of trying to hold it together?
GEOFF OGILVY: Thursday, Friday probably. It's hard -- it's hard for people to get it, but you can tell that it's going one way, and I don't -- I'm still not a very -- going one way doesn't mean the ball is going bad, but you can tell that it's deteriorating. I don't -- I'm not very good at fixing it in the middle of a tournament.
It was all good, and it wasn't that bad. I mean, I still hit it okay. But when you're coming down the stretch you want to be feeling good about it and I just wasn't feeling that good about it. I mean, I didn't get away with it all week. My swing was really good all week, but it was on the side that it could go the wrong way.
I don't know, it's just -- when you want to hit good shots down the stretch, and there's some pretty tough tee shots, and I just couldn't hit that. I don't know. I feel like I play 95 percent of my rounds like that, right on the edge of being stuck. I played pretty well like that.
I played the U.S. Open feeling like I was stuck, so it's not anything new.

Q. Even though you were behind and pretty much hanging on by the seat of your pants, did you feel any momentum at all going into 15 having made two terrific par saves to halve the hole?
GEOFF OGILVY: 15 I still thought I was going to win the match on 15. Well, not win the match. I still thought I was going to go further than the 17th green. I don't know, I just -- I hit a decent -- I hit a poor shot at 15 really from the middle of the fairway, and then I hit a decent putt.
But 16 was a killer here. He birdied 16 and 17. It's pretty hard to beat that.

Q. You birdied seven of ten holes yesterday against Campbell. I mean, I would think that would indicate that you were playing pretty well, yet you seem to be a bit critical of your --
GEOFF OGILVY: It's not like I was hitting it bad. I'm saying my golf swing was hitting a direction that --

Q. The wrong way?
GEOFF OGILVY: Like when it's dead still and it's nice, I'll hit it straight all day the way it was. But I get into a left-to-right wind and that just magnifies what I do. It's really hard to describe. I know I sound like I'm whining, but as I said, 95 percent of the rounds I play I feel like it can go that way rather than the other way.
I'm not going to blame my golf swing today. It's four or five short putts, that was it, at the end of the day.
Most guys -- no one out there ever feels perfect on the golf course. I think once a year you feel perfect. I'm just picking at stuff. But if I holed four- or five five-footers today, I'm good.

Q. On that note, on 12 in the morning, realizing you expect your opponent to make it, you hit it to five feet, that chip shot; he leaves his in the fringe and then chips in and you miss the five-footer. What's going through your mind at that point? It looked like you had that hole and maybe momentum.
GEOFF OGILVY: That's just another stupid thing to do. You just don't miss that putt. I never -- I don't think this guy is going to chip this in for birdie or belly it in or whatever he did. But it's in your mind that he might, you know. You haven't discounted it.
It wasn't the trickiest shot in the world, and if you just got it running, it was just like a putt with a wedge or whatever it is.
But I didn't even think about it. Before he hits his shot, I'm like, Well, I'm going to have to hole this. You tell yourself you're going to have to hole this for a halve. It turned out I had to hole it for a halve, I just couldn't hole it. 12 in the afternoon was annoying.

Q. You've already proved you're a guy that can win major championships. Looking at Henrik's game and what you've seen, how far can he go? He kind of seems similar to you. He's got the power, the short game, he's got the putting.
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, I mean, I can't see why he can't win anything. He can win anything he wants. He hits it long; he hits it decent; he obviously chips and putts pretty well. He's not afraid to win golf tournaments. I can't see any tournament he couldn't win, really.

Q. People are now starting to talk about him a little bit more since the Ryder Cup, since he wins Dubai --
GEOFF OGILVY: Well, they should be. He's ranked eighth in the world. He'll be fourth in the world or fifth in the world tomorrow morning. They should be. I mean, he suffers from the fact that he plays most of his golf outside the U.S. so people in the U.S. don't talk about what he does.
But he's been winning tournaments for three or four years. Didn't he finish second at the American Express a couple years ago?

Q. Third.
GEOFF OGILVY: Thereabouts, at Harding Park. Third at THE PLAYERS Championship. So everybody out here knows he's a good player. It's just people outside the golf world need to see that, I guess.

Q. Did you guys chat much?
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, a little bit. Not a lot, but a little bit. I mean, you never talk like best buddies in a match like that, but you're not rude to each other, either, you know? You just get on with it.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Geoff.

End of FastScripts

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