OPEN WRAP: Ogilvy shrugs off bad breaks

BY BRENDAN JAMES at THE AUSTRALIAN GC

HE is considered one of the keenest students of the game on Tour. So when Geoff Ogilvy speaks, especially on matters pertaining to the state of the game and course design, people sit up and take notice.

After the first round of the Emirates Australian Open, having been battered by hot 40km/h winds, the 2006 US Open Champion signed for a three under 68 which could have been at least two strokes better if not for iron shots that ricocheted off wood chips and into trouble.

Geoff Ogilvy plays an approach shot early in his opening round.
PHOTO: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images.

But rather than criticise the course for his bad breaks, he paid tribute to the immaculate presentation of The Australian layout.

“It’s incredible,” he said. “It’s conditioned as well as any course I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world.

“The greens are great to putt on, you feel like the first group out there every hole. They don’t show any evidence that anyone else has been out there, so we’ve got no excuses out there.

“It’s beautiful to play out there, so looking forward to sitting and watching a bit of golf this afternoon and watching the wind get stronger and stronger actually,” he added with a smile.

The 38-year-old’s results have not made great reading for the second half of 2015. His last cut made was at the Open Championship in July and, when he returned to the PGA Tour, five missed cuts followed. But he says his opening round at The Australian wasn’t all that surprising because he has been hitting the ball better than his results might suggest.

“The game is miles better than it appears,” he said. “I’ve only played five times since the Open, so it’s kind of weird that I haven’t made a cut since the Open.

“The last few events I was right in my head about my technique and stuff because I’d been working on it pretty hard and thinking about it pretty hard, but not really that fazed about it because it’s been getting better and better and better. I’ve hit it better every week I think; it’s almost a linear curve improvement.

“I’ve felt better and better about my golf swing for probably the last two years really and just been driving myself crazy with the putter a little bit, but that felt like it was getting better too.

“I was definitely getting on top of that and sometimes you can play well without getting anything out of it but know you’re playing well and that’s kind of - or know I’m about to play well, so that’s kind of what it’s felt like.”

He extracted seven birdies out of the tough Jack Nicklaus-designed course for his 68 and shares third place with young Taiwenese amateur Yu Chun-An, two strokes behind 18-hole leader Lincoln Tighe. PGA Tour winner Matt Jones, a member of The Australian, grabbed outright second place with a 67 posted late in the afternoon.

Ogilvy’s ball-striking in the conditions was sublime and could have grabbed him the lead but two loose shots were harshly penalised with a bogey at the long par-4 17^th and a double bogey at the reachable par-5 18^th holes (his 8^th and 9^th holes), which defaced an otherwise beautiful scorecard. On both occasions, his tee shots finished on wood chips in the rough just wide of each fairway and his second shots flew awkwardly off the wood. On 17, the ricochet sent his ball into the lake bordering the fairway.

Ogilvy gets a little unorthodox with his second shot on the par-5 5th hole.
PHOTO: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images.

“You could lose your head in that situation,” Ogilvy said. “It was pretty annoying. I didn’t hit that bad a tee shot on 17, it was a couple of yards from having a wedge onto the green, but it catches a tree and it could drop down and it would be all right, it go right it would be all right, but it goes left and ended up with a stick right in front of the ball.

“I was trying to be really conservative, I tried to chip it 50 yards right of the green and it just went straight left off the stick. So it was just one of those things, but got it up and down for a bogey, which wasn’t too bad.

“The same kind of scenario on – I had a perfect gap on 18, I could have punched it up, it was not that bad a spot, but again it hits a stick and goes straight up into the tree and drops down. I should have made six at worst but I made seven, which was wasting a shot really. So it was a shame on a par-5 to do that.”

Golf Australia magazine spoke with several players after their first round and nearly all agreed with Ogilvy that the greens were “absolutely mint” but questioned the wisdom of covering vast areas with wood chip.