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WGC CA CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 21, 2008Geoff OgilvyMIAMI, FLORIDA LAURA NEAL: Geoff, thanks so much for coming in, another good round. How did today treat you. GEOFF OGILVY: Pretty good. I didn't hit the ball probably quite as well as I did yesterday, but it's trickier with this wind direction, so I'll answer the question that was asked yesterday. If the wind goes the other way, is it harder? I think it is. Yesterday was the easier wind direction. Trickier off the tee, I think. I hardly hit a fairway. I was never really in a bad spot, but I was always just off the fairway. Felt like I played from the rough all day. I got up-and-down really well. I couldn't have had too many putts. I made some good birdie putts and got up-and-down every time I missed the green, so it was pretty good, really. Q. 23 putts. GEOFF OGILVY: 23? It didn't feel like many because I definitely didn't hit as many greens as I did yesterday. 23 is generous because I must have had five that were putts from off -- putts from this (indicating a foot). I holed one from off the green that was about that far (indicating three inches) off the green, but it counts as none. I did definitely putt well. Q. Since Adam is one of your best friends, any chance you two guys could gang up on him tomorrow since you're playing threesomes? GEOFF OGILVY: That would be fun. If you asked me a group to play in on Saturday in a three-ball at any golf tournament, it would be pretty close to the group I'd choose. It'll be fun. Maybe we can put some Aussie voodoo or something on him. Q. You said you weren't right on all cylinders today, but generally are you playing well enough to be confident you can go mano-a-mano with Tiger over the weekend? GEOFF OGILVY: I think so. It wasn't like I hit it horribly today. It's quite tricky. It has to be such a precise shot to hit a lot of these fairways when it's blowing that way and the fairway goes the other way. Five or six drives I hit I thought were on the fairway and they kind of just trickled through or went into the semi. I hit the ball really, really well yesterday, so I mean, you're a harsh critic when you hit it that well like I did yesterday. I'm hitting it well enough. You don't hit it perfect every day. And the rest of my game is solid enough. That's a long answer. I think I'm playing well. Q. You won a couple of tournaments with this type of field. In those situations, do you worry about who's on the leaderboard? Do you see names? Do you know or are you aware of who's close to you? GEOFF OGILVY: You obviously see names, but it doesn't really affect what I'm thinking, whatever name is scoring what. It's just interesting to see how your friends on TOUR are doing, enemies on TOUR are doing (laughter). It's just interesting to see how other people are going. I think it's valuable looking at a leaderboard because it gives you a sense of how the golf course is playing today, that day. Looking at the leaderboard today, obviously Tiger and Adam were playing well, but a lot of people were going backwards, so it gave me a -- it makes you realize how you're actually playing. Sometimes you think you're playing well and you're not doing well relative to the field. Sometimes you might be getting a bit down on yourself and you're doing quite well. All day I realized that I was actually doing quite well against most of the field, so that's what I try to take out of looking at a leaderboard, not really who's where or what. Q. Obviously one is the match play event and the other one is nobody is playing for birdie that day, everybody is really grinding for pars and bogeys. But in a situation like this do you have a different mindset on the weekend here as opposed to late in those tournament rounds? GEOFF OGILVY: The match play is different. The match play is really one hole at a time type stuff. So many things can depend on what the other guy is doing. The U.S. Open, it's not protect and defend all the time, but you've always got an eye on -- it's a much more conservative strategy. You don't just want to hit driver on every hole, I mean, every tee you stand on, how do I make par on this hole. This is more just go and hit good shots and make birdies. I'm pretty sure Adam and Tiger are pretty good at making birdies on Saturdays and Sundays, so I think we're still going to have to make a few more, so I think just play the same as the last two days and just try and make birdie. Q. Not to put you in a tough spot necessarily, but whose swing do you like better now, Tiger's or Adam's, since Adam's started off as a dead reckoning of Tiger's, just from an aesthetic standpoint, you being a fan of the game? GEOFF OGILVY: They're both very good. I wouldn't rate one above the other, actually. Tiger has probably got a more complete game at the moment from 100 yards in than Adam. That would be the only difference really. I think if they had a ball-striking competition they'd come out pretty close. If they had an up-and-down competition from inside 100, Tiger would probably win, but he'd beat anybody in history. They both swing it great and have both got good swings. Q. Not that there's any wagering on the PGA TOUR, but the odds are that -- a few minutes ago in some bookie parlors in London, Tiger is 1 to 2 to win this tournament and you're 5 to 1. Do you think that was an accurate reflection? GEOFF OGILVY: And Adam? Q. Adam is 5 to 1, as well. GEOFF OGILVY: So it doesn't matter who it is playing against Tiger (laughter). They've been getting burned, the bookies, and I read somewhere this week everyone kept loading up on Tiger and they keep taking the bets and they keep losing. That's reality. He's won these last however many golf tournaments. He hasn't lost too many when in contention after two rounds. He hasn't lost too many at Doral. There's a lot of things in his favor. It'll be pretty brave of a bookie to have any larger odds than that. That's almost conservative for them, you know? I mean, everything is in his favor, obviously historically, but each tournament is a different tournament than every tournament before. 5 to 1, if I wasn't playing, maybe I'd have a go (laughter). Q. You've addressed a little bit ago the enjoyable three-ball with Tiger and Adam. Can you talk about the dynamics of playing with Tiger, in his group, and do you feel your game will thrive with that attention and atmosphere and whatnot? GEOFF OGILVY: Most of the time it's been pretty good when I've played with him. It can get quite circus-like actually. It's inside the ropes that's generally the problem when you play with Tiger because there's so many photographers and you guys inside the ropes that it's incredible. It's amazing. I remember the PGA, the first hole at the PGA with him and Phil, that was -- circus was the only way to describe that. There must have been 200 people inside the ropes on the 10th tee when we teed off on Thursday. It was incredible. But when it gets so crazy, it's kind of easy to blend it out when it's just so crazy. It's like public speaking in front of ten people is quite awkward, but 1,000 is easier because you can kind of blend it out. It's quite similar, I think. If you hit a putt and there's one person standing directly behind the hole, it's really quite off-putting. But if there's a whole load of people you don't really notice any of them. So often it's a bit like that. Q. Just taking the crowd and craziness out of the equation, just playing with him the way he's playing right now, as you said, on this incredible streak, can that help elevate your game? GEOFF OGILVY: Hopefully. Q. It can go the other way, too, sometimes, with some people. GEOFF OGILVY: I've often most of the time played quite well when I've played with him. He's fun to play with, one of the nicer guys out there. He talks less the closer to the 72nd hole you get, but that's the same as most of us. Yeah, he's very enjoyable to play with, and most of the time I've played well with him. I've handled the circus quite well. It's hard to not become a spectator sometimes, but you've got to try hard not to. Sometimes it just happens. But you can be a spectator and still beat the guy you're watching. Q. You may have touched on this yesterday but I wasn't in here. Last year at The Masters you played as well as anybody on many of the holes. I think you led the field in birdies but had a couple of big numbers. Did you feel like you let one slip away there, and do you feel like going back there this year that you're playing well enough that you should really do well there? GEOFF OGILVY: Personally I don't feel like I let one slip away. I felt like I let an opportunity to be amongst it on Sunday slip away, which is what you want. You don't know what you're going to feel like teeing off on 12 or 13 or 16 or hitting your shot into 15 on Sunday close to the lead until you actually do it. I had an opportunity to be right there and I messed it up. That's frustrating. But every time I go there, I walk away thinking, I can really do well here. It's a course that I really enjoy playing. How could it not inspire you to want to think better about the game and get better at the game? Every time I leave the place I'm counting the days until we get back there next time. It just made me think I can really do well there one day. Q. I guess you won The Open at 4-over, or whatever it was, and now we're kind of going the other way. Are you comfortable in this kind of environment where you've got to keep pushing theoretically to keep making birdies to win a golf tournament? GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, sometimes. Either way, I think, both have their appeal. It's quite fun to grind and hang on. There's something about grinding and hanging on that's appealing, making pars, walking off with a par you never thought you were going to make, and then feeling like you're doing that five holes in a row kind of wears you out, but it's great fun. It is great fun making lots of birdies. Definitely I would say I would rather do this more often than grind it out. It's more enjoyable making birdies. But I think I'm relatively comfortable with either kind of style, if you like, whatever it is. Q. What's more of a distraction, the circus following Tiger around or the harem of girls following Adam Scott around? GEOFF OGILVY: Both. Both have their distractions (laughter). Q. You're going to get them both tomorrow. GEOFF OGILVY: That will be good. It's an ideal group to play with, the best golfer of all time and the best gallery-puller of all time (laughter). Q. At what point, or can you remember a round or a practice round in the last few weeks when whatever was going wrong kind of went away and the swing you got right now kind of kicked in? Was there a hole or a practice session or anything that you felt, okay, I've got it back now? GEOFF OGILVY: It was a bit rough when I started playing on the West Coast. LA I felt like a proper golfer again. I missed the cut, but I felt like a proper golfer again. There was no real moment of clarity, it just kind of -- I got to LA -- the practice week I had before I got better each day before LA, and by the end of LA I was frustrated that I didn't do any good, but I was confident that I was actually going to play decent golf again. Then when I got to Tampa, it felt really, really good. It's always a gradual thing. There was no moment of clarity, but it was a gradual building of confidence, I guess. Q. There's this debate of whether when Tiger's name gets on the leaderboard the guys at the top kind of falter one way or the other. I'd be more curious how, if he's around the top of the lead with four or five shots on a course like this, do you think the guys who might be, say, five shots back, what would you think their feeling is going into the weekend? How is it different if it had been someone else? GEOFF OGILVY: Obviously you'd have more hope, perhaps, if it was somebody else. If it was just me and Adam, say, and everyone else was five back, the field would probably have slightly more hope because they know Tiger is going to make birdies. I don't think they would give up, but they would probably assume that they needed to have a really low weekend, I guess. I don't know. Maybe they're all just hoping for a good finish, I don't know. Q. Would that help in a situation like this where two guys have separated themselves? GEOFF OGILVY: Having Tiger up there has to help the guys behind because I guess they've got nothing to lose. They're going to free-wheel. They know he's not coming back. The question was, does it help that there are two guys with him? Q. No, pretty much you and him, and Adam is now at 9, so throw Adam in there, as well. There's three of you that have fairly separated themselves, I guess. GEOFF OGILVY: Does that help me or anyone else? Q. The three of you or two and a half of you or whatever. GEOFF OGILVY: It's obviously easier to win the tournament if you've only got a couple of guys to beat on Sunday rather than 20. You know, sometimes you get these fields or these weeks where you feel like 10 or 15 guys can win on Sunday because there's only ten shots separating the last ten groups. That's probably not going to be the case this week, which it generally isn't in these shorter field tournaments. They tend to spread out more. It must be easier to beat one or two than 15. Obviously Tiger is a very hot guy to beat, but if it was Tiger and seven other guys within two shots of the lead, it would be harder than if it was just Tiger. Q. Like Bay Hill last week? GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, Bay Hill could have gone any direction last week with 12 holes to play. Q. In the situation you're in, you can look at it two ways. One is I've got to go against the golfer who's playing the best golf of his career, or what a great opportunity I have this weekend to beat the guy that's playing the best golf of his career. Can you address that? GEOFF OGILVY: That's the way I would look at it, this is a great opportunity. Every week you tee up and he's in the field, it's a good opportunity. It's a good opportunity to -- especially at the moment, he's winning every week. It's a good opportunity to beat, again, perhaps the guy who's becoming the best golfer of all time. Just to get a chance to compete against him is fun, but to get a chance to beat him is -- like you just said, it's a great opportunity. You've got nothing to lose. The bookmakers obviously believe he's going to win, and everybody else. You guys probably all think he's going to win. So we've got nothing to lose, so why not just try to play as good as we can. It's just going to be fun. Q. Knowing how difficult it is to win out here, what is your impression or appreciation of the streak that Tiger is on right now dating back to last year? He's always in contention, even when he's not winning. I'm just kind of curious as a player who knows how difficult it is to win out here. GEOFF OGILVY: The winning thing is pretty stunning. The being in contention all the time when he's playing bad is a testament to how well he grinds it out and how he never gives it up and how good his short game is. Jack spent most of his career in contention, and the great players have always kind of found their way to have some kind of chance. But the fact that he's winning as much as he does is pretty astonishing. Last week it didn't look too good for him after two rounds, but there he is playing in the last group on Sunday. It took 18 holes to go from not looking too good to playing in the last group on Sunday. He got blessed with a good round on a difficult day, but that's what he does. His sense of timing is pretty good. He obviously knows how to win a golf tournament. He knows he's never out of it. Winning is -- seven in a row, six in a row? It's pretty impressive. I mean, that's a good career (laughter). But I mean, so many things can go wrong in a week even if you're going well. That he just seems to even ride those out, it's pretty good. End of FastScripts |
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