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VOLVO WORLD MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIPMay 15, 2013Geoff OgilvyKAVAMA, BULGARIA MICHAEL GIBBONS: Welcome, Geoff Ogilvy to the Volvo World Match Play. Ask your thoughts on the golf course you just played in the Pro‑Am. Did you enjoy it? GEOFF OGILVY: It was all right. Woke me up when it was so windy, almost seemed unplayable when we out on the range. Kind of settled down and did that yesterday, too. Yeah, it's an interesting course. It's a stunning bit of land. I mean, I don't know if I've been in a place as impressive, a bit like Torrey Pines, you're out on the cliffs and you look out, it's a pretty impressive place and there's some extreme‑type golf holes out there. Perfect for match play. I think I'm glad we are not adding them all up I think there could be a few train wreck holes out there, potentials, anyway, with some pretty long grass. There will be a lot of birdies I think, and quite a lot of others. So I think that's probably good for match play, yeah. MICHAEL GIBBONS: A word on your first‑round opponents, Richard Sterne and Bo Van Pelt. GEOFF OGILVY: Well, I've been playing in the U.S. for quite a while now, so I see Bo on a regular basis, but I know Richard pretty well. He's obviously had a big return of form this year. He's played very well this year, as all of the South African golfers have played well this year. They are obviously playing very well. I haven't been in the best form the last year or so. But it's a format that I like and I've had some success at match play, so hopefully I can hit some good shots and roll a few putts in and progress. Q. Is there one thing that put the form down to? GEOFF OGILVY: Not really. I haven't putted as well as I used to I guess the last little bit, which makes it difficult. Just, I don't know, generally not scoring very well. I don't know, golf is a funny game; it comes and goes. Sometimes it seems like the harder you try, the further away it gets. There's enough good signs. Put in reasonable time and I think it's coming back I think. Q. Inaudible. GEOFF OGILVY: No, it's not that bad. It's just that I guess I used to be able to save bad ball‑striking weeks with some good putting and good scrambling. I guess I probably haven't quite done that as well. And then your confidence is battered because you think you're playing worse than you actually are and golf is very much a confidence game like that I think, or for me it is. Has not been horrible. I'm still making more money than I'm spending, so that's a good thing for a professional golfer.  Yeah, not what I was used to for a few years or so. Hopefully this is a tournament that can spark some good stuff hopefully. Q. Any long‑term concerns? GEOFF OGILVY: Obviously you don't like to play poorly ever, but no long‑term concerns really. Just want to get back to where I was. Q. What do you think of the group format? GEOFF OGILVY: It obviously doesn't suit TV very well but this format is a lot better than with 64 and you lose half your best players every day. So certainly to play it more‑‑ it's a pretty pure form of golf. When people go home and just play with their friends, most people play match play very regularly. It's a great way to play the game and it's a shame it's not more prevalent in professional golf, but it's great that tournaments like this have hung in there for a long time, historic ones, and the other one, the Accenture or the WGC, it's nice if you get a couple of chances at this format, because I think everybody enjoys is when they do it. Q. You have had some success in the matchplay in the past, why do you think that is? GEOFF OGILVY: I love the format obviously and I've had some success and I enjoy playing it. You play so much of your amateur game match play or you finish a lot of your tournaments match play. I really like it. As I said, it doesn't really suit the whole TV sponsorship thing losing players every day, so it's not very entertaining at the end of the day. So it's just probably not appropriate to play it too regularly. But it's nice to have a couple of chances a year; and then I get the Presidents Cup and there's The Ryder Cup, so people get to watch it semi‑regularly I guess. Q. What do you think about the World Cup being at Royal Melbourne this year? GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, it's cool, it's nice. It's good for Australia. It will be a good summer down there for us. There will be four tournaments in a row, hopefully Adam can get down there and play a few and get them all excited after the Masters, they are pretty pumped about that. And that's obviously a pretty historic tournament, the World Cup, began as the Canada Cup. It was at Royal Melbourne when I was a kid in 1988, straight after (inaudible) they played there two weeks in a row, and this year it's going to be the Australian Masters at Royal Melbourne and the World Cup. So to have the two best players from every country at Royal Melbourne for four rounds is a bit of a coup for Australia I think. Some pretty good golf followers and golf fans in Australia, so they will be pretty excited about that. And the fact that it's at Royal Melbourne I think might coax a few more; it might coax‑‑ nothing against Mission Hills, but it might get a few more bigger names, interest at least, in the World Cup if it's at someplace like Royal Melbourne. Q. Do you think it will attract more players? GEOFF OGILVY: I mean, if Rory and G‑Mac are down there playing, it's fantastic because we don't get guys like that very often, with the way the Tour schedule is, there's not many empty weeks anymore. The Australian tournaments, we can't raise the sort of money that you play for in other places and back against two or three tournaments every week; and so to have a tournament like that and to potentially get guys like that is pretty exciting. Q. Do you agree with the obsession that Tour has that the Players Championship Championship is the fifth major? GEOFF OGILVY: I guess it's only natural that‑‑ I don't know. I mean, I see the majors asthe majors, thatÂ’s how it started. There's four in tennis, four in golf. I don't know why they desperately need it to be called a major‑‑ I don't know if they desperately need to. I think they just hope that it does one day. There's nothing wrong with being the richest tournament with the best field in golf. That's what it is. It really is the best field in the world of the year probably, and maybe the PGA, similar. It's basically got most of the top hundred in the world last week. There's nothing wrong with being the best field. I don't think there's anything wrong with being that and not being called a major. It's a pretty special tournament. And maybe if it goes on for a hundred years and it keeps‑‑ if it has the best field every year for a hundred years and it keeps getting played around Sawgrass and guys like Tiger keep winning it, then maybe one day it will be decided that it's a major, you know. But at this point, it's just a really, really good tournament I think. Q. Do you think that will happen? GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, I don't see that happening. I'm happy with the four at this point. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Thanks very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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