Ohio native Ogilvie feels at home at Muirfield Village

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DUBLIN, Ohio -- He was an 11-year-old golfer who couldn't hit it very far but had big dreams when he first played Muirfield Village Golf Club.

Joe Ogilvie, a native of Lancaster, Ohio, remembers well competing in the 1985 U.S. Junior Amateur. He remembers how special that was, to be playing on the course designed by Jack Nicklaus and played by PGA TOUR players. He also remembers that he could barely hit over the water at the par-4 second hole.

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Thursday's 69 was Joe Ogilvie's second best score at the Memorial. He had a 67 in 2005.

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The carry over that creek, which cuts in front of the tee and runs down the right side of the fairway, is 100 yards. He hits it quite a bit farther now. He's gone quite far since then, too.

The Duke University product has built a steady career on the PGA TOUR that includes more than $7 million in earnings and his first victory last year at the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee. Ogilvie hasn't played particularly well since his only top-10 finish of the year at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, but on Thursday the air was warm, his gallery was stocked with familiar faces and his putter was hot on the glass-like Muirfield Village greens.

The result was a 3-under-par 69, which put him on the leaderboard for the second time in his four Memorial appearances, four strokes off the pace set by Mathew Goggin.

"Being on a leaderboard anywhere is a good thing. Being on it here is extra nice," said Ogilvie, 34, who broke par for only the second time in nine rounds at Muirfield Village and posted his second best score at the Memorial after a 67 to open the 2005 edition.

"I had a lot of family out there with me today. I know this golf course as well as anybody. Those were extreme conditions out there today, so, yeah, I'm extremely pleased."

Ogilvie canceled three bogeys with six birdies on a golf course set up similar to a U.S. Open, with lush overseeded rough, fast fairways and faster greens. Ogilvie estimated that the greens were running at a ludicrous-speed of 15 on the Stimpmeter.

"You know how dogs don't like to go walk on glass? They freeze, they back off," said Ogilvie, a member of the PGA TOUR Policy Board. "If there were dogs out on the golf course, they'd stop at the edges of the greens. They are really fast. They are like the Masters, though the slopes aren't as severe. They are definitely the fastest greens we've seen this year."

Ogilvie might know Muirfield Village, but he saw it in another light on Thursday when he watched playing partner Shaun Micheel putt from 40 feet above the hole all the way off the green and back down the fairway to set up a 35-yard pitch for his fourth shot.

That's why Ogilvie cited a bogey he made on the ninth hole, his 18th of the day, as a round-saver. He pull-hooked his second shot on the 412-yard par 4 long and left. He purposely chipped his third into the fringe so as to not hit it through the green and into the water that fronts the putting surface. He then two-putted for his 5.

"There aren't many great bogeys in your life, but that might have been one," he said, grinning.

With more than 20 family members and friends in tow, Ogilvie hit just nine fairways and nine greens, but he only needed 22 putts. The Ohio kid might now live in Austin, Texas, but he still prefers to putt on bentgrass greens more common to the Midwest. That and the fact that hot weather is approaching might account for his second sub-70 score of the month.

"I think I play better in the summer. It's how I grew up ... you played golf in summer," he pointed out.

Of course, he didn't grow up on greens as fast and treacherous as Muirfield Village presented on Thursday, but he reveled in the challenge.

"It was really quite severe out there, but it was also a lot of fun," he said. "You had to think more, know how to use the slopes. Like I said, I probably know this course as well as anyone. I only played nine holes here this week in practice. I think some of it is just playing well on a place where you are comfortable."

A place that feels like, well, home.