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MASTERS TOURNAMENTApril 6, 2010Geoff OgilvyAUGUSTA, GEORGIA THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. We would like to welcome Geoff Ogilvy, seven-time PGA TOUR winner, 2009, winner of the 2006 U.S. Open and repeat winner of the 2009 and 2010 SBS Championship. That is back-to-back wins. This is Geoff's fifth Masters appearance. Would you like to make a few opening comments before we invite questions? GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, obviously it's nice to be here again. It's nice that the temperature has been turned up a little bit from the last few years. Obviously always look forward to this tournament, look forward to it in reality from the Sunday night last year when you drive down the driveway and before you get to come back to play again. So one of my favorite tournaments. I came here a few weeks ago to have a look and I've been here since Saturday afternoon, played Sunday and played 18 holes yesterday and played nine holes this morning, it ended up being. So pretty excited to be here really. Q. How would you compare this course when it's set up for the Masters, in terms of Royal Melbourne or those kind of tournaments, particularly the shots that you have to play around the greens and the way in which the smallest mistake can lead to a fairly substantial error; do you think that's true? GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, it is. I mean, an Australian Open setup, say, at Royal Melbourne is similar that if you miss it in the wrong spot on the green, you have absolutely no chance. You are just looking to get the chip shot on the green, which happens out here if you miss it in the wrong spot. If you miss it in the right spot, it's really quite simple and I guess that's the beauty of golf courses like these is that they invite you to try to work out where those good spots are and tempt you to learn where the bad ones are. It's spacious off the tee like Royal Melbourne is. There's a bit more water and some tricky wind directions out here. It's always, you change direction suddenly quite a lot out here and it does do some funny things to the trees, the wind here, so the unpredictability of the wind is more a factor than Australia. In Australia it would be constant in one direction. As far as the setup around the greens, it's definitely the same type of approach that you have to take to it. Q. Just assess your season so far. GEOFF OGILVY: Good start, obviously. Then probably not -- didn't really kick on from my best start, from a good start here. I've played okay, but not anything great. I mean, I don't want to make excuses but we did have a baby in the middle of February, which kind of threw the schedule around a little bit, and there's always that unknown of when he's going to show up. So that, and the lack of sleep a little bit, for the first few weeks throws a different element in that wasn't there last year at this time of the year. So I'm glad I won a golf tournament already. The way I played at Kapalua, I was really, really excited about continuing on that, but maybe just having a few extra weeks off at the start of the year really just threw the momentum a bit and hopefully maybe it will -- because I've often played great on the West Coast and then not played great from this period on. Most of my success has come early, so maybe this year it will start building up from here. Q. It seems like the way you can roll it at times that this would be a course that would be suited to you. It's right in your wheel house, to use an American term, I would think? GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, you would think, because there's a little bit of space off the tee which can sometimes help me out. As I was saying, the greens, it's quite similar approach to short game, at least, that I grew up in Australia. Really prizing being under the hole and having uphill stuff. Same type of shots, not just 60 degrees out of long rough. There's actually chipping involved and imagination around the greens, which we don't have that regularly anymore on TOUR, but I did this sort of stuff growing up. So I would think that it's one of the regular courses we play that would suit me as much as any other ones. I don't feel like there's any reason that golf course sets up that I can't play well, anyway. Q. A lot was made last year of pin placements Sunday and it made for aggressive play; what are some holes where pin placement really changes the way you would play the hole, from one placement to another? GEOFF OGILVY: Every hole pretty much, which is why it's a great golf course. There's two or three exceptionally hard greens, doesn't really matter where the pin is. The first is one of them and 10 is another one. You kind of play those holes similarly. But 4 is tough every day. But there's a pin on every green that is green light from everywhere on the fairway and then there's a pin that's red light from everywhere on the fairway on every hole, and everything in between. There are a couple of really, really cool holes where depending on where the pin is each day, where you will attempt to drive it or lay the ball up, will be completely different from the day before. 2 is one of those. 2, sometimes left is great, and then sometimes 25 yards right of the green is great. That can change from day-to-day, which makes it interesting. But if you can -- I wouldn't ever say easy, but you can make the course relatively simple if you put all of the pins in the easiest spot on every green, but you can get the course close to being really, really difficult if you had the toughest pin on every green. (Laughter). And everything in between. So I think it's a good balance. Yeah, move a pin 20 feet and it can change the strategy of a hole completely. Q. When exactly did you arrive here, firstly? GEOFF OGILVY: Saturday afternoon. Q. And do you think it might have been in retrospect a blessing in disguise to get here a couple of days earlier than you were planning? GEOFF OGILVY: It was nice. It's one of those good/bad situations. I don't like missing cuts, especially don't like double-bogeying the last hole to miss a cut. But saying that, double-bogey, missing the cut and then going into a week off, would be really, really disappointing. But missing the cut and getting to come here a couple of days early, it would be possible to come here early. I would rather have had four rounds last week but not like I missed out on any because I got to come here early. So there's good and bad to it. Q. Do you generally go into a tournament knowing when you're going to have a good week or not, or does it take you by surprise one way or the other? GEOFF OGILVY: It can take you by surprise one way or the other. Sometimes it's a hindsight thing, at the end of the week you look back, yeah, I knew I was playing well, and maybe you didn't acknowledge it in that sense or something. But sometimes it can be completely surprising the other way. I've had both. I've had weeks going in thinking I'm going to play great and I do and I've had weeks I'm thinking I'm going to go in playing great and I play horrible, and the other way around. Golf is a very unexplainable game. Q. And now? GEOFF OGILVY: I thought I'm playing pretty good. I thought I was playing great going into Houston, too, and it didn't kind of work out. But I'm hitting the ball really well and I'm really enjoying being out here and stuff, and that's always a good thing. Yeah, I think I'm playing okay. Q. I know all of the negatives; are there any positives that you can see from taking five months off coming into a golf tournament? GEOFF OGILVY: Your enthusiasm would be pretty high to play. If I take -- a lot of reasons sometimes in my case playing well and playing poorly, a lot of times in I'm playing too much, I don't want to be out there very much. And you don't maybe dig as deep or you bogey the second hole on Thursday and you maybe don't quite take it as well as you should have. If you've had a month off, it's just water off a duck's back and you just want to get to the third hole and play another golf hole because it's so long since you've played any golf. I think that aspect would be really good. He's proven to be able to come out of big breaks before and play well. So, we'll see. Q. Since one week you were an ambassador for Schuco, what does that green building mean to you? GEOFF OGILVY: Obviously pretty exciting. It's a subject that interests me, and especially with the solar power generation, it's something that's confused me why it hasn't been pursued more actively by the world. It seems quite an obvious solution to a lot of -- at some point, we are going to run out of coal. At some point -- I'm not going to get on any green rant but at some point you would have thought that's a very obvious solution to putt something on people's roof if the technology is there and Schuco is a company that's one of the world leaders in that aspect. So it's nice to get involved with companies, anyway, obviously, because there's advantages, but to get involved in a company that you really believe what they do, it's pretty exciting. Q. As you've watched the Tiger Woods thing unfold over the last four or five months, what's been your emotions? GEOFF OGILVY: Emotions, I wouldn't -- I guess surprise at first. And then almost non-interest after a while, I would have said, because it was just blanket coverage for so long, it was boring from our perspective to be honest with you. I just wanted to see him come back. The best part about this week is he's back playing golf again and we're back to some level of normalcy. Definitely surprise at first but after that not fussed really either way. Q. He apologized yesterday to the players; what's your reaction to that? GEOFF OGILVY: That was nice of him. He didn't have to do it. I don't think anyone personally held it against him. I don't think he set out with any intention of drawing this sort of attention to himself. So it was nice. There might be a few players that were grumpy about it, but we have been answering questions about Tiger for 15 years, so it's not any different. Q. Could you compare architecturally the two back nine par 3s here, 12 and 16? GEOFF OGILVY: 12 and 16, compare them to each other or just talk about them? Q. Just talk about them? GEOFF OGILVY: Well, 12, obviously is a pretty special hole. It's pretty short. And if the tee was in the middle of the 13th fairway, it would be the easiest hole in the world. You could push it or pull it and it would go on the green. I mean, there would be some swirling winds, but the beauty of it is the angle that the green sits, you really have to choose. If you choose to hit in the left-hand side of the green, you have to putt it there and if you push it, it will be short and if you pull it, it will be long and it's that's same all the way along. It's especially difficult for a right-hander because a push goes short and a pull goes long, so it's a fantastic right-hander's hole difficulty-wise. And it's very blessed with the swirling wind, which makes it truly awkward, but it would awkward with no wind because of that fact. You pull it, you'll be over the back. I think that's a pretty cool hole, and proves you only need an 8-iron to have a great hole. And it's not really a small green. It's just small areas that you're aiming at. At 16, it's a fantastic green. It has any number of pins down the bottom and two really obvious pins at the top which they have generally used every year forever, I think, that front right, and the back right. And again, it can go from front tee bottom pin somewhere, one of the easiest holes on the course, to the pin anywhere on the right hand side high, especially that front right one is just nasty. It's just almost impossible. It's not impossible, because you can stop the ball within six feet of the hole any other side, but if you don't, you're going to be bad, you know. And 16, they are both blessed with stunning settings with the flowers and up against the hills and the tree. They are both the most beautiful places on the course, the 12th and the 16th hole. So architecturally great holes and just blessed with great settings. Just nice. And neither of them are long, which is nice. Q. If you don't mind, I've got two questions, the first, since you don't mind talking about Tiger, do you think he can actually win this year? GEOFF OGILVY: Yes, I do. We've spent 15 years, again, underestimating what he can do. I have 100% confidence in his ability to win the tournament. Not saying he's going to but I think he can. Q. You're obviously sort of our best chance as far as Australians go, but what do you make of the Aussie contenders this year, a pretty strong group? GEOFF OGILVY: I think it's pretty strong. It's a shame Sim hurt his shoulder but I think he'll be back. Scotty is coming into form, he won the Australian Open last year and he's played solid enough this year without doing anything scary but solid enough to think that he's in good enough form to do well enough. He's got a perfect game for this place. Allenby, Robert has had a bit of a resurgence the last 12 months and the cool thing for Robert is he's been making putts, which is the most important thing out here. You can tell by the look in his face that he's excited when he putts, and he has not been like that as long as I've known him really. And he's really legitimately enjoyed golf, which is a good state of mind for him. The other guys, Mark Leishman has a great game for this place. It's his first time here and I played nine holes with him today and he's taking it all in and really enjoying it, but playing really well. He's got his mindset on doing well, which I'm pretty sure he's capable of. And Greeny, first time here; I haven't seen Greeny this week but he's a pretty long hitter and streaky with his putter and when he starts making a lot of putts, he can do great, too. Who have I missed? Senden? He hits the ball long and he shapes- it both ways, which is a handy thing. So for the last however long I've been here, and before, Australians, it would not have been a surprise at the end of the week, an Australian won. We are in that place. We have got three or four guys who could legitimately win the tournament and it would not be a shock. And it will probably remain that way until we win one. (Laughter) Hopefully it's this year. It's definitely coming. It's imminent, I would assume. Q. You won in Hawaii but eight months since the last major; is there always that degree of uncertainty coming to this first major of a new season, given the distance between the last one? GEOFF OGILVY: Uncertainty with what? Q. How you are going to be at that sort of major level? GEOFF OGILVY: You kind of know where your game is at. You know where your game is at because we play golf all the time. As I said to Bothy, you never really know how you are going to play. But it is a big -- you do seem to have a big gap and they always seem to come thick and fast. Especially those last three, you're at the U.S. Open and then you're at the PGA and you're like, what happened, we played three majors and you take a breath. They definitely all come in a rush. I don't know, I don't think -- there's such a specific test out here and it's similar every year. I mean, the thing that varies is your weather. You know the test you're going to come to. It's unique, so you get that unique Masters/Augusta mind-set on. Just stick to that, and you've kind of known it for eight months, so I don't think there's no real surprises. Everyone whose been here before has done it before and they know what they have to do it win the tournament, and they are either in that place in their game or they are not. Q. Were you relieved when you found out you were not going to be playing with Tiger or is that something you wouldn't have minded doing? GEOFF OGILVY: I would have dealt with it. (Laughter) And it would have probably been quite fun once you got out there can got amongst play, because this would be a great place to play with him because of the insulation when you're inside the ropes. Definitely, as he mentioned yesterday, it's definitely a different kettle of fish when you play with him. When I played with him and Phil at Medinah in the PGA, that was ridiculous how many people were inside the ropes. It was absurd. You were probably there. (Laughter). Q. I was the absurd part? GEOFF OGILVY: There was no one in the media center, anyway. (Laughter) here you are a little bit protected and it would be the best seat in the house and you could get sucked along by that and often play well in a situation like that. So it would have been initial 20 seconds, really, I have to do that and then when you thought about it, actually probably not a bad draw. But yeah, I'm not sad that I'm not in the group, either. So there's positives to both. Q. And have you bumped into him yet? GEOFF OGILVY: We drove past and waved on the way from the range. He had his sunglasses on. He must be protecting his eyes from the pollen. Q. Did he stop and give you a hug? GEOFF OGILVY: No, he was driving. Q. You said he was always great to play with; what makes him great to play with? GEOFF OGILVY: I enjoy watching him play, just purely as a golf fan. He's good to watch play. There's probably a lot we can all learn because he beats us up quite regularly. There's stuff we can learn from watching him play. I think each time I've played with him, his golf gets more mature and more interesting to watch. He shapes the ball around a lot more. He hits a lot more club and hits softer iron shots and more interesting shots instead of just smashing it like he used to. I just enjoy watching how he's going about it. That, and it's just a fun atmosphere generally. As I said, the atmosphere can get overwhelming at times with the inside the ropes presence, but he gets boisterous galleries and that's enjoyable. When you hit a good shot in front of some of his fans, they look after you, as well, and it's fun. Q. Kind of a delicate question -- especially since it's coming from me, that's a shock, but among the fans there's a perception that he has an aura of invincibility; given all of the water under the bridge and that he's proven to be incredibly flawed in many ways without going into anymore detail, whether the aura among the players for him as changed, whether you look at him differently or when his name goes up on the leaderboard at some point this week, does it still make you stand back and pause and say, uh-oh. GEOFF OGILVY: I was never really -- the aura of, and if you want to talk about if he had an aura, which he really didn't -- I mean, the first couple of times I played with him, I was pretty blown away by the whole thing. But after I got to know him a little bit and played with him a few more times, it was just like playing with another guy who was really, really good. And if there was any level of intimidation -- and I'm only speaking for me, I don't know what everyone else feels. But for me, especially if you were playing the back end of a golf tournament, the intimidation was that you kind of knew he was not going to hit a bad shot. You don't know that about any other player out here, because every other player out here has done something wrong in the last few holes at some point. And if you feel like the guy you're playing against is never going to do anything wrong and is going to play great -- if you know he's going to make a 30-footer on the last, that's intimidating. So I guess what I'm saying is, it's a golf-based intimidation for me. If he starts coming out and playing well and winning again, I think it will remain. I think if he let a tournament or two go, and he isn't the same for some reason, which I can't imagine why it would be true; but if it does, then I think the intimidation might go away a little bit. But if he plays like he used to, I think it's still there. It might be different but the last nine holes of Augusta will be the same if you stand with him on the 10th tee tied for the lead, you feel like you have to play well to win, and I don't think that will be any different from 2009, in 2010. Q. Do you think there will be more curiosity to how he performs this week than ever before? GEOFF OGILVY: Probably. He's fairly talked-up every major, especially this one, because it has been eight months. He's generally probably already played three or four tournaments by now and won two of them and everyone is talking Grand Slam every year. There's always curiosity how he's playing here but there's probably a level of curiosity from not the golf fans; it's a broader audience probably this week than maybe the Masters has ever seen, which is cool. Maybe more curiosity, but there's always been a fair bit of it, anyway. THE MODERATOR: Geoff, thank you very much and good luck this week. End of FastScripts |
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