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WASTE MANAGEMENT PHOENIX OPEN

February 2, 2011

Geoff Ogilvy

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA

DOUG MILNE: Geoff Ogilvy, thanks for joining us. Great week for you, somewhat of a hometown event. This is your first start; is that right?
GEOFF OGILVY: This is my first start this year, yeah, uh-huh.
DOUG MILNE: Get us up to speed on your game and how you're kind of looking at starting this week and then 2011.
GEOFF OGILVY: Well, obviously I intended to play at Kapalua but hurt my finger there so I couldn't play there, couldn't play the Sony at all. I was going to play last week but couldn't -- well, I probably -- I really didn't really hit shots until a few days ago so I probably couldn't have played last week, either. So yeah, just -- I mean, it's nice to get started, especially since we're going to lose today it looks like. It's incredible weather.
I've lived here quite a lot, and you get cold mornings. As everyone who's been here, you get cold mornings and you get some frost, but this is a legitimate winter day today. There's a reason why people move here from up north down here in winter, and it's not for days like this, so this is kind of unique.
But yeah, disappointing I don't get to play today but I'll try to get out and hit a few balls probably if they're going to let us do that up there and just get ready for tomorrow. An afternoon tee time, which I think will probably be the best side of the draw tomorrow. We probably definitely won't play 18 because there will be a bit of a delay tomorrow morning, too. I'm looking forward to it.

Q. Could you give us a little more background on the finger problem and what the status is now?
GEOFF OGILVY: The status is -- I mean, I cut myself on the reef in Maui. I had 12 stitches in my finger and it's right on the inside of my right index finger, so it's in a very annoying spot for a right-handed golfer. It's right where the club hits the thing, so it was still sensitive -- it's still a little bit sensitive, but it's like a bad callus now as opposed to a legitimate cut if that makes sense. I had stitches in for two weeks, got them out, and it looked a bit gruesome after the stitches because I lost the top layer of skin. You know when you have a cut it goes through periods of looking great and then bad and then great and then bad, but it's back and I've been hitting balls the last two or three days and it feels like I'm hitting it like I was when I arrived in Hawai'i.
Been practicing my putting quite a lot. I've been putting most of the time. Once the stitches came out I was practicing putting and short game a little bit more, and the game feels pretty decent.
It's up to adding it up in a tournament is always different from hitting balls on the range and practicing and stuff. So time will tell, but it feels pretty good.

Q. You did a fascinating interview in Sports Illustrated a couple years ago where you talked about trying to rejuvenate your long game, you went back to working on your short game like you did as a kid. How useful is that when you're trying to recover from something like this and getting ready for a tournament?
GEOFF OGILVY: I mean, it's nice to know that -- because that period a few years back convinced me if you practice your short game your long game gets better because it really is just a longer version of the same swing, I think ideally anyway. So it's nice to know that just practicing your short game isn't just helping your short game, it is actually contributing to the rest of your game, that and the fact that it's probably the most important part of the game anyway, putting followed by -- the closer you are to the hole when you hit a shot the more important it seems to be to your score anyway.
So getting a little bit of extra short game time is good anyway, and I think as you said, it does have a knock-out effect on the rest of your game so it's nice to know that I'm not neglecting my long game just by practicing my short game, so I don't feel underdone at this point.

Q. How many balls would you be hitting this week?
GEOFF OGILVY: I hit quite a lot the last couple of days because I got to the point where I can hit as many as I want, I don't know, 300 or 400 or something, I don't know. More than I would -- more than I've done for a while.

Q. A couple hours?
GEOFF OGILVY: A few hours, yeah.

Q. Are you looking forward to 16?
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, 16 is always fun. You just want to give them what they've been waiting for. You just want to hit a decent shot. It's the funnest hole of the year when you make birdie or hit a good shot and it's the least fun hole of the year if you hit a bad shot or make bogey. They're pretty ruthless when they get lubricated towards the end of the day, especially Friday and Saturday are the two big days, I think. It's a fun -- as I said, it's the funnest hole of the year when you play it well, and you just want to play it well not only to have -- you want to make birdie for the tournament, but it's just a fun hole to make birdie on because of the way they react. If you don't make birdie you just want to make a very nondescript middle-of-the-green, two-putt par. You don't want to like -- especially don't want to miss the green. They boo. They wind you up all the way up the hole if you've guy a bunker shot or if you've got a tricky little shot, so it's best to not stand out if you're not going to make birdie, you know what I mean?
But it's fun. It's no fun if you don't do it any good, but -- it would probably get old if it was every week of the year, but one week of the year it's pretty cool.

Q. Do you think it's too much?
GEOFF OGILVY: I don't think so because it is what it is and everybody knows that when they come to the tournament, that 16 is where -- as I said, it's great. It's the most fun of the year if you make birdie. And if someone in your group does something fun it's almost better because you've got the best seat in the house for something cool. So I don't think it's too much.
They're not sensible by any means. They don't act sensibly at all, but they're -- it's so loud now that there's a general hum noise the whole time, so when you're putting there's a lot of noise so it's not like there's one person yelling when you're putting, there's thousands. So when it's a constant it doesn't put you off. It's when it's -- if it was dead silent and someone yelled, that would be hard, but it's just this constant noise, and it's actually amazing how little attention a lot of them are -- if you're not making birdie, how little attention they are paying to actually the playing. They're just having a conversation with their friends. It's a cool hole.

Q. What do you do if you miss the green? How do you keep your concentration there?
GEOFF OGILVY: It's hard. You're just disappointed because they're booing you. They're trying not to boo you I don't think, but it does sound like a boo. It's hard. It's a hard hole to concentrate on anyway because there's so much more going on.
You just go and do the best you can. You just do the best you can and hope you hit a good chip shot. Then you've got a chance to chip it in, which would make them go really crazy. You look at it that way, I suppose, as opposed to I've got a chance to flub a chip shot.

Q. How was it last week being so close to being able to play and being in San Diego and everything? Will you alter your schedule at all?
GEOFF OGILVY: It was really frustrating because when I did it in Hawai'i, I mean, obviously missing Kapalua was pretty disappointing, but as soon as I kind of came to terms with that, I'm like, oh, well, I'll be fine for San Diego, psychologically, and then a couple weeks later I just worked out I wasn't going to be able to play. It wouldn't be the right thing to do to play.
It was pretty disappointing because we've got a house there and are spending a lot of time there. It's only five minutes up the road. The weather was so perfect, and it's such a -- if you can't start at Kapalua, it's such a great place to start because it is where it is and it's the tournament it is and it's the first Tiger-and-Phil show and it's the great first great field and the whole thing. It would have been nice. It's disappointing.
But it was what it was. To this point I've been lucky enough I haven't had to miss too much golf through any injuries or anything. This is kind of an odd non-golf injury, but it's not that nice to not be able to play when you want to.

Q. Back in the context of the 16th hole, you have a very calm demeanor. So in moving from the 15th green through the tunnel up onto the green, what's going on with you? How are you managing that process? Does it change any in terms of some of the other rises you get out of yourself emotionally on the course?
GEOFF OGILVY: You get a little bit like -- there's a little bit going on. I don't know if it's nerves or adrenaline when you walk through that tunnel. Depending on who you're playing with, too, what they're actually going to come up with, that group of guys that's just up the left, ASU kids -- they start off as ASU, I think everybody joins them now, what they're going to come up with, and who you're playing with, because they're not afraid to get into anybody. I played with Camilo last year or the year before and they wanted him to do, whatever you call it, the spider thing? They just wanted him to do that all the way up the hole and they're yelling out in Spanish and the whole thing. You're kind of wondering what are they going to come up with this time or what's going on how are they behaving.

Q. So how do you manage that?
GEOFF OGILVY: It's a nervous excitement, I guess, when you get close to it. I guess the first time I ever played the hole you don't know what's going on, but it's changed in ten years since I started playing. It's completely different. When you look at footage of Tiger in '97 it's completely different. There's a few bleachers but it's mostly people just throwing stuff on the tee. They're quite a long way from the tee now. There's such a stadium feel about it that you just get used to playing the hole over the years, and now it's just kind of nervous excitement and looking forward to trying to hit a good shot, I think.
It's a very hard hole to get the wind so I'm usually stressing on the 15th green walking up there looking at the flags because you can't feel the wind on the tee anymore so you try and look at the flags up on top of the stands or get the wind for 16 before you walk through because it's not a cool hole to be in between clubs when you're feeling like that on a shot. You really want to have the right club so you really want to get the wind right. It just becomes a bit of an issue actually. So I'm thinking about that, the shot and what are they going to carry on about this time.

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