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WORLD GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS
| Friends Ogilvy and Casey set for Saturday showdown  PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents MARANA, Ariz. -- The membership list at Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale reads like a who's who of the PGA TOUR. Phil Mickelson designed one of the two courses there, and he's a member. So are Aaron Baddeley, Billy Mayfair, Paul Casey and Geoff Ogilvy -- and about 20 other TOUR pros. Not to mention, roughly a quarter of the 350 or so members have a handicap of 5 or less.  Geoff Ogilvy will be playing for more than bragging rights against Paul Casey on Saturday. (Steve Grayson/WireImage)
So those regular Friday pick-up games can be pretty spirited. Turns out, though, Casey may have hit on the right strategy. "There's a lot of great players back at the club, so I'd rather Geoff was on my team than playing against him," Casey said of the reigning U.S. Open champion who set the course record of 66 on opening day. Casey and Ogilvy will be playing together again on Saturday -- only the stakes are considerably higher than the bragging rights at Whisper Rock. The two, who live seven miles apart in Scottsdale, will square off in the quarterfinals of the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship. Casey beat Shaun Micheel 2 up to advance while Ogilvy eliminated Niclas Fasth 2 and 1. Both players have a record of success in head-to-head competition on their side. Ogilvy is the defending champion of the Accenture Match Play Championship while Casey captured the HSBC World Match Play, ironically beating Micheel in the finals. The two are good friends who have been eating together each night this week. "So maybe I'll have dinner with him tonight and put something in it," Casey said with an impish grin. Ogilvy is, after all, undefeated in nine matches at the Accenture Match Play Championship. "There's always pressure on it because he is defending champion," Casey said. "He's higher in the world ranking, U.S. Open champion. It's going to be a tough, tough match. I mean, I'm going to have to play some very good golf against Geoff to beat him. "But I relish the challenge. You know, it's going to be fun. It's nice playing friends because you get to chat talking down the fairways. Geoff is pretty relaxed as it is anyway, but still, when push comes to shove we're going to be grinding it out and wanting to beat each other as badly as possible." Casey's no slouch, either. He won his eighth European Tour event earlier this year in Abu Dhabi and Ogilvy is prepared for another tough test on Saturday. "I'm glad to play the weekend at this tournament," Ogilvy said. "I think it's a pretty tough tournament, this one. Paul is obviously a pretty good match player. He won the HSBC there in England last year, so he's obviously running on a bit of confidence "We're members at the same golf course .. up in Scottsdale, so we've played a lot of golf together so it'll be fun." Casey had a tough match with Micheel. He was 3 up after 10 holes but the 2003 PGA champion clawed his way back into the match, and Casey's bogey at the 15th hole brought things back to even. A two-putt birdie at the par-5 17th gave the Englishman the edge, though, and the match ended when Micheel missed a 12-footer for birdie on the final hole. "I got off to a great start, played very solid golf to begin with and found myself 3 up very early, which I thought was a bit of a surprise," Casey said. "And then the tides turned a little bit. I made a couple of mistakes, and all of a sudden found myself square. "So it was a battle all the way down to the last, and I find myself very fortunate that he missed his birdie putts on 17 and 18. So very lucky to get away with that." Ogilvy's match was similarly close on the back nine. Fasth had a chance to square the match at the 16th hole but his 10-footer stubbornly refused to fall. Ogilvy then sealed the win when he two-putted from 64 feet on the par-5 17th. "Hard day, it was cold," Ogilvy said. "The wind was completely different from the first two days. The course was sort of taking it the first two days, a lot of birdies and perfect greens, and all of a sudden there are a bit of teeth to the golf course. "It was that cold, it was playing really long. I was hitting 3 irons into holes that I was hitting wedge into the first two days. So it was tricky but it was a day to kind of just grind it out and chip away and see if I could make a couple of putts at the right time, and that's what happened." |
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