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MERCEDES-BENZ CHAMPIONSHIP

January 9, 2009

Geoff Ogilvy

KAPALUA, HAWAII

DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome second round Mercedes-Benz Championship leader, Geoff Ogilvy back to join us.
You got the job done and maintained a one-stroke lead. Just a couple of comments on the round and how you're feeling as you get into the weekend.
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, happy where I am. I played really, really well the front nine. Yeah, made a bunch of putts. Didn't hit many good shots, but made some putts. Birdied the holes you're supposed to birdie, and snuck a couple of extra ones.
The back nine just wasn't too bad. I couldn't really make a putt. I birdied the 15th, and then finished a bit rough, which is a bit frustrating. The wind changed somewhere between our tee shot on 17, and the second shot on 17, and you couldn't feel it where we were standing. So I kind of got a bit miffed by it all on the 17th. I was at least one club short.
Then 18, I hit two good shots, but just hit a 3-putt. The first putt, I was staring straight at the sun every time I looked at the hole. So I'm pretty annoyed at the way I finished, but I'm happy with where I am and how I'm playing.

Q. What was your yardage on 17, and were you surprised when it landed, I guess?
GEOFF OGILVY: As soon as I hit it in the air, I knew it was short. It just climbed. My tee shot had gone 400 yards, so couldn't possibly have been going that way on the tee shot, because the Kona winds, I get turned up somewhere between the 17th tee and the second shot. It's doing it now; it's off the left on the 18th, and I've never played the 18th off the left.
But as soon as I hit it, it just looked like it was going to be short. I had 130 front maybe and the pin was way back. But normally, you pitch it halfway out the 17th, and it rolls down there. I hit wedge normally 135, and it flew 128. Normally downwind, it would have pitched 140-some and been ten short. That's the way you are supposed to hit it. It was sitting fine. One of those things, you just -- as I said, I've never seen Kona wind here, so playing 17, you just expect it to go long and can hit right-to-left, and it went short, and it got the other way.

Q. Too early in the tournament, but were you at all conscious of not making a bogey, or were you just playing?
GEOFF OGILVY: I just made one, so I'm conscious about it more.
No, I didn't really think about it. Every couple hours on the golf course, it dawns on you, but it's not like it was a concern. It's not like, Oh, I've made a bogey, I can stop thinking about it (laughter). It's in there. You just don't want to make bogeys because you don't want to make bogeys; not because I want to have a bogey-free tournament or anything.

Q. You were speculating about if it hurt or not, that bogeys hurt less this week.
GEOFF OGILVY: Oh, yeah, it's frustrating making a bogey from a good drive and a good position. I hit a good second putt. It just went around the hole.
It's frustrating when you make a bogey like that, a soft bogey. If you make a bogey on the hardest hole on the course, you drive it into a fairway bunker and if it's in a horrible spot and you make a bogey. But making a soft bogey is frustrating. And 3-putting last two holes is the frustrating part, I guess. If I 2-putted the last, I would have been less frustrated with it.
But at Kapalua, it could be worse. If you had told me the first two rounds that I would only have one bogey, I'd be okay.

Q. Birdies on the front, 6, most impressive?
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, that's always tough when the pin is on left there. That was a good shot, yeah, because the pitch shot, it's impossible to hit it over the hill and not have it go into the right rough there. If you hit your wedge shot too far to the left, it goes all the way down there in two, so you have a small hole to fit it in and I did.
So that's always a tricky one. I don't know about more impressive, but satisfying, yeah.

Q. And secondly, what do you think this will do for rest of the week if this Kona wind that's apparently coming in early, stays that way, for a lot of guys, like yourself, that maybe haven't seen it?
GEOFF OGILVY: I'm sure a lot of guys have seen it. A lot of guys have been playing this course for a long time. I've never played it like this. I'm sure it will be a bit awkward. Your instinct is every time you go that way, you go downwind, and every time you go into that way, you go into the wind. And that's pretty much the instinct here. If it goes the other way, you have to rethink. The clubs off the tees are automatic. You pull your 3-wood off the first, because driver goes too far. It's automatic. If it turns around, you have to start thinking about clubs like that.
It's just going to have to make us not playing automatically, and so we really have to start thinking about it.

Q. How did the overall quality of your golf today compare with yesterday, pretty similar?
GEOFF OGILVY: I played well. I drove the ball well again. Irons were decent. I had plenty of chances. Probably the front nine, I putted better today than I did yesterday, but that would be splitting hairs. I've putted quite well the whole time.
So about the same probably.

Q. Is that the main difference in your scoring over the previous two times that you've played here, do you think?
GEOFF OGILVY: The previous two times I've played here, it was a lot harder, I thought. This is the easiest I've played this course, because it has not been as windy as it was. I started playing here just after they redid the greens, and they are a lot firmer, which has also got me spooked on a hole like 17 and 18, because that was just almost impossible to stop on 17, from about three or four years ago. Now it hits and the greens have settled in and they are a bit softer than they were.
It's also a course, I guess, like Bothy said yesterday, it helps to play it a few times to understand how the winds and the slopes are and how extreme the grain is. You just get it in your head, and you can hit 5-iron from 120 yards sometimes. It's just so uphill and so windy. So it's just an experience thing, too.
DOUG MILNE: If you would just run us through your card, the birdies and the one bogey.
GEOFF OGILVY: Birdied 4. Hit a good drive. I hit 9-iron, I think, from not very far, about 110 maybe, and made a good putt from about 15 feet.
5, I hit a really good drive. I went down in the right, not really on purpose, but I played short there and only had 6-iron in there, so that was a bonus. The wind was ten degrees in a different spot, so 5 played pretty short for us today. 2-putt birdie.
Then I was 50 yards from the green in the right rough, hit a pretty good little pitch shot out to, I don't know, three or four feet maybe.
8, I hit a good shot under the hole and made probably a 20-footer.
On 9, I drove it in the rough and had to lay it up. Hit, I think, in the end, it was a pitching wedge from about 80, 90 yards, and that went to four or five feet and made that.
15, I hit fairway, 3-wood right of the green, which is what I normally do, and got up-and-down, pretty good pitch shot to five or six feet.
17, was obviously, I hit it to the front edge and 3-putted. It was tough. I 3-putted last year, but they were pretty tough putts, so what are you going to do.
DOUG MILNE: Thank you very much.

End of FastScripts

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