After a frustrating year of poor results on the PGA Tour, one could forgive Geoff Ogilvy for falling out of love with golf.

But the 36-year-old is genuinely excited about his prospects in 2014 and says his game is close to turning the corner. He hopes part of that about face in form will be evident this week at the Talisker Australian Masters on a course he knows intimately well, Royal Melbourne Golf Club. You could say it will be like playing in his backyard … as he does own a house that backs onto the famed piece of golfing real estate.

“We played The Presidents Cup here a couple of years ago but I think the previous time I had played a tournament here was maybe the Heineken Classic,” he said. “So that’s 10 years ago. So I have been pretty excited. As soon as they said – or whenever they say there is a tournament on the Sandbelt – I get pretty excited, especially if it’s Royal Melbourne.

“I probably know the course as well as anyone in the field so if I play well and hit the ball in the right spots and make a few putts there’s no reason why I can’t get right up there,” he added.

The Victorian has already played two events on the PGA Tour’s 2014 schedule and says there were enough positives to take out of those two tournaments – without looking at the results – to be confident of a good showing this week and beyond.

“It’s been a bit of a rough few years actually, two years probably,” Ogilvy said. “But it feels like it’s coming around.

“Golf is a weird game. I mean the harder you try sometimes the worse it gets so it feels like it’s turning around. I hit the ball pretty well the last two tournaments I have played in the US.

“The first two tournaments of next year’s schedule I played in Vegas and California. Didn’t make many putts but kind of played okay so it feels like it is turning around,” he said. “The corner is coming.”

Ogilvy said he played some of his best golf ever on the back nine at Augusta National in 2011, when Charl Schwartzel birdied the last four holes to edge out Adam Scott, Jason Day and Ogilvy. But his form slump began soon after as the result of a niggling shoulder injury, which he carried into that Masters. He tried to play through the pain in his left shoulder but made it as far as the Players Championship a month later where he was forced to withdraw.

Ogilvy says the past few years have been frustrating but there have been enough positives lately to suggest improvement and a win are not far away. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

When he recuperated from the injury he tried to make up for lost time by practicing harder than he ever had before.

“I was probably playing the best I have ever played at that Masters but missed everything,” Ogilvy said.

“But I had been practising really, really hard up to that point and I actually played that Masters with a sore shoulder. I didn’t play probably the next eight weeks. I tried to play Sawgrass and pulled out after 27 holes or something.

“Ever since then I have kind of struggled and I kind of rushed back from the injury and I hit too many balls or practised with not as much purpose, I guess. The purpose was just get back, get back, start playing better and I think I lost my way.

“But I lost my way practising harder than I ever had rather than less than I ever had which is the ultimate frustration, which is quite a common theme. If you actually talk to a lot of Tour players they get worse when they try to get better.

“That was one of those things and then I started searching a bit too hard but I have since tried to take a step back and practised with a bit more purpose. I was just mindlessly hitting too many balls and putts just without enough direction.”

Ogilvy’s slide from the top echelon of the game in recent years is clearly illustrated in his stats. He rose to No.3 in the world ranking in July 2008 and is now ranked 120. His scoring average in 2013 was 71.588 and he finished 93rd on the money list. Back in 2006, the year he won the US Open, his scoring was 70.25 per round and he banked $4.3 million in prizemoney.

Despite his poor run, the 2006 US Open champion has never stopped loving golf and competing. He’s been frustrated with it, but has never contemplated divorcing himself from the game.

“(Divorced) … from golf? It hasn’t been that bad,” he laughed. “I have definitely had fantasies about, ‘Geez, it would be nice to not do this, wouldn’t it?’

“Never serious thoughts but, ‘Geez, it would be nice to move back and live in Bayside and just not have all this stress every week.’

“You know, because even when it is good it’s stressful. It’s not real stress but it is perceived stress.

“It has never been that bad. I mean I have still made an absurd amount of money this year in the real scheme of things. I have had 25 weeks off to spend with my kids. I am not sitting in 27B (on a plane), you know what I mean? It’s pretty good even when it’s bad. I haven’t even got remotely close to that point yet but just some extreme moments of frustration. But mostly I still love the game … most of the time,” he laughed again.