U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 12, 2008

Geoff Ogilvy

Q. Summation of the day, first of all.

GEOFF OGILVY: A lot of people would have bogeyed 11 and 12 today, because they were playing as hard as they can today. I bogeyed the next hole, and kind of played really good from there. I played really well in the middle of the round and cut the holes from the end, but it was, all in all, pretty good.

Q. When did the greens start getting tough?

GEOFF OGILVY: From the first hole. But that's what poa is like. They change a lot from first group to last group, always. Every U.S. Open is the same, the ones you play on poa, anyway. Especially because it's so thin underneath and there's softness on top in the morning. I don't know why it does it, but it does it. It looks worse than it is. If you hit it on line and you hit a decent putt, it goes in. If you miss it, it gets scary, but overall, pretty good.

Q. (Inaudible.)

GEOFF OGILVY: That's an exaggeration. I think they're all right. Look, we've played Thursday, Friday afternoon at Winged Foot, they were a lot worse than that today by ten times, I thought. </ p>

Q. You never really had any luck to speak of at all on this golf course, but it's January then, and now it's so different, it's almost irrelevant.

GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, it's different. I don't think the reasons I struggle here in January had to do with the golf course. It's more to do with I don't like the cold too much. I haven't played in Hawaii. I don't like super soft greens. Everything about it is just not my favorite. I've never played good on my first West Coast tournament, no matter where it is, and this is afternoon. I never really read that much into it, it was a good warm up for me, and if I played four rounds, it's a bit more.

Q. (Inaudible.)

GEOFF OGILVY: I don't really think about it that way. It's just nice to be -- the draw here, anywhere, it's going to be an equal draw. But today, the weather is going to be like this every day for the next four months, you know. It just doesn't change here. You might get a little bit cloudy, but it's nice to have a good round in your afternoon round in the first two rounds, for sure. You don't have to, but it is nice. And it's nice to go out early after you've had a good score. But I wasn't thinking about that. I was just happy that I was playing well.

Q. (Inaudible).

GEOFF OGILVY: I made some good putts. I hit it really nicely. I don't know what my stats are. I haven't looked. Right in the middle there, I had pretty much had a decent round of birdies, probably the middle nine or ten holes of the round. I made a few of those and I made some nice par putts. It was pretty balanced. It was nice putting, nice hitting.

Q. (Inaudible.)

GEOFF OGILVY: No, it was no big deal. 11 and 12, are two pretty tough holes. That was the windiest it got. It died down the last six or seven holes. That was probably the windiest it was. 13, up the front -- I knew 13 was up at the front tee. And I knew 18 was on the front tee, so I wasn't too stressed. And even if you shoot two or three or four-over in the first round at the U.S. Open, it's not over. No panic sessions.</ p>

Q. Will there be any adjustments at all for tomorrow?

GEOFF OGILVY: No, not really. The same sort of thing. I'm looking forward to potentially smoother greens tomorrow, but they set the course up -- there's a couple of tough pins, a couple of really tricky pins. But the whole field could reach the third and 18. So they could move a few tees back and tomorrow it could be a completely different golf course tomorrow.

Q. Does it help to play with someone like Ernie, that's playing well?

GEOFF OGILVY: It's nice to play with the guys making a few birdies in this thing. Justin really didn't play that bad. He had a tough day. He had missed two or three short putts in a row. And if you're playing with two guys that are having not a fun day, it maybe gets a little more difficult. When you're playing with a guy that's making a few birdies, it's -- it's just a nice mood in the group on the tee.

Q. The one on 6, how big was that?

GEOFF OGILVY: That was big. That was nice. I bogeyed 5, drove it in the bunker, and you're going to do that, I can handle that.

6, I hit a decent drive. You get some really strange lies in this first cut. Some of the first cut is kikuyu and some of it's like rye. And the first cut rye is the easiest grass, and the first cut kikuyu is spongy, and it can do all sorts of stuff. And standing on it, it's a bit like -- you don't have the solid stance because you kind of float around on it. So you can't ever be that sure about how it's going to come out, but I made a funny shot. I made a nice shot for par.

6, was maybe 12, 15 feet, probably. And 7, was about a seven or eight-footer, so that was nice.

Q. You've won before, and you find yourself one step off the lead, and an early morning tee time.

GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, you want to shoot a decent first round. As I said before, it's not over if you don't. It's nice to have a decent round in the afternoon because you know it's potentially going to be a little bit easier tomorrow, like when you play your early tee time, especially here because you know what the weather is going to do. It's pretty predictable. It's nice.

And it's still a tough golf course when you play early in the morning, so you're still going to have to play well. But hopefully I'll get some birdies, the greens should roll nice tomorrow morning, and hit a few nice shots, you never know.

Q. (Inaudible.)

GEOFF OGILVY: It's different, yeah. They were perfect in the practice rounds. And they're perfect here, they just -- you get a full field over them, slightly less water on them every night from Monday until now --

Q. With the sunshine, they get bumpy?

GEOFF OGILVY: This is probably the first bright sunshine day we've had, we've had cloudy days, but U.S. Opens on Thursdays and Fridays tend to be like that. The greens get that way, especially when we have the poa greens here. Winged Foot -- but on the weekend, Winged Foot was perfect. I tell you, you just get full fields on the poa greens, and the sun comes out, and the footprints don't come out, they stay in there.

I figured if you hit a good putt -- it looks funny, but if you're hitting good putts, they're going in.

Q. Do you expect sort of a similar philosophy tomorrow as far as it was hard, but it seemed -- people said it was pretty fair, playable, similar time of thing?

GEOFF OGILVY: Hopefully, because you want the quality on both sides of the draw. You don't want some crazy pins that are going to be ridiculous when the greens get firm in the afternoon, but playable for the guys in the morning. You don't want any lopsidedness.

It doesn't matter where they put the tees, but I hope they put the pins in spots that work throughout the day. I'm sure it will be fine. Mark Davis is -- every player should go pat him on the back, and pat the USGA on the back for employing him. He set the golf course up where it's enjoyable to play.

Q. Can you assess the way you feel you're playing right now?

GEOFF OGILVY: I'm playing pretty well. I played really well at Colonial, Memorial, without playing great. It was just nice. I'm hitting it decent and putting okay, just a putt or two away from being right there at the end, at the end of the week.

I played really well ever since the Florida Swing, really. I had it rough in Augusta and Sawgrass, but one of those things. Again, just didn't make the putts at the right time. But the golf, pretty happy where it's at.

Q. How far is the place from here you're staying at?

GEOFF OGILVY: Ten minutes, depending on the traffic, but ten minutes.

Q. Did you watch in the morning at all?

GEOFF OGILVY: I watched a little bit. I watched the Phil and Tiger show this morning for a while. He got the odd shot on TV.

Q. Are you happy not to be ranked No. 3 this week?

GEOFF OGILVY: I guess Ernie dropped out and they swapped last week, did they? Ernie was -- they didn't know whether Ernie was happy or sad to drop out. That's a fine group: Adam, I had that at Medinah a couple of years ago. It's where you want to be. It's better than being in the group in front of it. You get to see the two best players in the world going at it.

Q. Did you ever envision a situation where you'd dump a driver, like Phil?

GEOFF OGILVY: Not out here. It's interesting, his 3-wood is super strong, it goes miles. His 3-wood was going past my driver. When he hits his 3-wood he hits a draw, and if it's a draw on him, I'm fighting it, his 3-wood goes past my 5 draw. But it's amazing. I don't know.

Q. (Inaudible.)

GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, maybe. This kikuyu you play a lot in Sydney. Melbourne has a couple of courses with this grass. I guess you get used to putting on it. Everyone out on Tour is probably decent at it now because we play on it so much in the West Coast, and up northeast, in Westchester, you play on it. I think everybody is great on it by now. And we have firm greens in Australia, that's all we know in Australia.