What they said: Geoff Ogilvy

text size

MORE INTERVIEWS: Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial transcript archive

JOHN BUSH: We would like to welcome Geoff Ogilvy in the interview room. Jeff, thanks for coming by and spending a few minutes with us. Currently you're No. 2 in the FedExCup points race. It's been a tremendous season for you including two victories. If we can get you to comment on your preparations for the week and on your season as a whole.

GEOFF OGILVY: Preparations for the week are going quite well. I've had two weeks off after Sawgrass, which beat me up a little bit. It's been really nice. It's obviously be a really good year. I played fine at Sawgrass and Charlotte and Augusta, my last few tournaments. I didn't have any of those great weeks with the putter that you need to compete. It all feels pretty good. My ball striking, I feel like it's getting better and better, actually, so I'm working on some fun stuff. So looking all right.

JOHN BUSH: You just finished up with the Pro-Am, can we get your comments on Colonial and some of the changes that they've made, renovations?

GEOFF OGILVY: Yes, it's actually quite nice that they've made some changes that you kind of keep looking at going, did they change that, did they not change that? It's a pretty seemless kind of change. Most of them I think is better, the course is better for it. A few extra bunkers here and there. The tees, a lot of them they look like they've just gone down a couple of feet which gives it a different look and probably makes it play a little longer in some respects because you are down a little bit. They cut the back of some of the greens, the ball is going to run away from a few more greens than it did before. All in all, pretty good changes. I would still like to see a couple of trees in a few places come out of this course. Apart from that, it's one of my favorites courses and probably nearly every guy in the field, if you polled them, it would be in their Top-5. And they haven't done anything to damage that by changing the course. A lot of times they change courses these days, that can happen. So fortunately that probably improved it. It's nice.

Q. Hi, Geoff, I'm doing interactive marketing for the tournament this week running the Twitter for the guys. I have a question from one of the followers. What part of your game is feeling best this week and what part of your game might not be feeling the best that you need to focus on to be successful this week?

GEOFF OGILVY: Well, the guy who wins the tournament is usually the guy who putts the best. As I said, I haven't putted bad the last few tournaments I've played, I just haven't made all of the extra putts that you need to make. My putting feels fine. I would say my putting is the part that if I hole a lot of putts I'm going to do well. But I'm working on some fun stuff with my golf swing. My ball striking is getting better and better. Even though I had some great weeks at the start of the year there was a couple of periods in there that I wasn't happy with the way I hit the ball. I'm always happy with my short game. I would be lying if I wasn't. If that answers it -- does it answer it?

Q. You've used the phrase "fun stuff" twice regarding working on your golf swing. Is there really fun stuff on the practice range? What is that fun stuff?

GEOFF OGILVY: I've struggled with getting the club -- I mean, it's a very trendy term, stuck, on the way down. When I've missed it, I missed it a long way to the right which was frustrating. When I started hitting it straighter, it would be still be just a little bit stuck. I wouldn't get as much club on the ball. It's an intangible thing, hard to explain, just a couple things I'm working on, helping get rid of that. It's fun to hit some shots I haven't been hitting, that's why it's fun. I'm actually enjoying hitting balls on the range. When you are not 100% happy with your golf swing, hitting balls is not that enjoyable. But when you are seeing improvement every day you come, and you come back the next day and it's better than it was the day before, that's enjoyment. I guess, fundamentally, that's why we all play golf, so that's why I say it's fun. For a long period of my career, I haven't like hitting balls because I haven't liked the way I've hit it some times. Whether it's good or bad I still kind of pick holes in the way I've hit it. The last month or so I have been really happy with just hitting balls on the range. I'm really seeing improvement and there is some shots that maybe I was struggling to hit a while ago that I'm starting to get back, that's the fun thing, seeing it improve.

Q. Are you going to turn into it a range rat like Vijay now?

GEOFF OGILVY: No, I'm enjoying my time on the range at the moment. I'm hitting 4 buckets a day. I'm not hitting 60 like Vijay does. But I am actually going there after my rounds and hitting a few and enjoying it. I see practice as necessary at sometimes and counterproductive at others. It's been really productive. When you've got nothing really to work on, there is no point going down there, because I just end up like I say hitting it and getting flustered because I'm not hitting it as good as I want. And I am probably hitting it fine. But before you know it, you're not hitting it well at all. So I practice, at this point, by hitting balls is my focus at the moment. I'm really enjoying that. In a month's time, when I feel like I got a good handle on my ball striking maybe it will go back to pitching or putting or whatever I feel like.

Q. One last thing on the stuck thing, are you keep keeping the club in front of you more?

GEOFF OGILVY: Pretty much. I have a little bit, when it gets bad, a reverse thing kind of finish, like a big arch in my back, that's because of my downswing getting struck. Just trying to finish more straight up and down. That keeps the club in front of the body, really. I'm not really very technically minded but I always hit kind of high draws. I'm trying to hit it a little bit flatter which that will help. And it's enjoyable, to change your ball flight is quite fun, especially a ball flight that's been the same for a number of years. It's been quite fun.

Q. You really raised your game up there. I'm wondering if it's a tough balance to draw, when you reach that level where you are, you probably want to go another step further. Is that a tough balance? Do you leave well enough alone or do I make big changes?

GEOFF OGILVY: I guess that's the art of golf is knowing yourself and how to getting you playing the best. There are thousands of cases of guys that tried to get better and got worse, which is effectively your question. The best part, I see golf, the sport of golf doesn't change, everybody is playing the same game, the only thing different is the people playing it. That's the only thing that can vary. You are not trying to work golf out, you are trying to work yourself out. I'm still doing that. It's probably why historically why golfers haven't gotten to their best until they're in their mid-30s because they slowly by trial and error work out what works for them and what doesn't work for them. Yes, there is a danger, if you try too hard to get better at a certain aspect, that you are going to get worse at it. I think as long as you treat it as that kind of trial and error thing and learn from your mistakes and don't do it again, try to learn from the way you got bad, you can only keep getting better and that's kind of the way I look at it.

Q. With his win this last week at the BMW, one of our followers wants to know, Paul Casey, your Whisper Rock friend, if there is a bit of a rivalry going on between you guys?

GEOFF OGILVY: Is this realtime questions we are getting? Are you Twittering the answers?

Q. I will Twitter after.

GEOFF OGILVY: Yes and no. You want to beat everybody out here when you are playing with them. Sometimes there is that little extra when it's a friend because you play a lot with them. You don't really wants to see them lose, but it's really nice to beat the people you play a lot with. Nothing extra special. It's great that he is playing well. He has underachieved a little bit to this point, and now we are actually starting to see how he actually can play. He has gotten more comfortable with the U.S. in his game. He won in Houston, he won Dubai, Abu Dhabi. And then PGA, that's their Players Championship last week, that's one of the biggest legitimately one of the biggest tournaments in the world, on a historic golf course, and he just kind of literally just blew the field away, leading all week, and played a really good last round. Yes, he is playing really well. So that can only make me want to play better, but from a rivalry perspective, I don't want to beat him anymore now than I did last week.

Q. When would you feel like your playing your best this year? You drove it great at Kapalua and won there. This little thing that crept into your swing that made you work on it.

GEOFF OGILVY: It's always been there. And it's been my tendency -- and Kapalua is a perfect example. When I got to Kapalua I had been doing some really good stuff at home. My golf swing actually felt the best all year on about Tuesday, Wednesday at Kapalua to be honest with you, and the week was a very mild one. But a tiny deterioration, Thursday, Friday it felt fantastic. And Saturday not quite as good as Thursday and Friday and Sunday. The word struggle was relative. If I could rate the days from how good it felt, it would be 1, 2, 3, 4, Thursday through Sunday. By the end of the Sony it felt kind of rubbish. That's always kind of happened with me, I would have a really good week and it would kind of deteriorate and it would go back in this stuck kind of thing and I would fix it. So it's always been there. Then the Match Play, especially Saturday and Sunday the last three matches, I would have to say that's probably the best I've ever played, or the best I've ever felt about it, equal to the first couple of rounds at Kapalua or better. Kapalua you kind of got that space. So I holed a ton of putts at Kapalua. It's always been there, and I'm a bit that way, and I am just trying to get it a bit more like that way, because you're always going to have good periods and bad periods. I just want my good period to last longer and drop off and not to be as sharp. Because I go from hitting it really well to poorly in three or four days, and I didn't think that was right, because I always quickly fall back into the tendency.

Q. Finchy (Ian Baker-Finch) is playing this week, what are your thoughts on that?

GEOFF OGILVY: It's awesome. I'm glad. He is the most enthusiastic golfer in the world. I think he has been playing every day for the last 15 years. He is right into it. Hopefully he plays well. I know he plays well at home. He is the nicest guy out here. I think everybody hopes to see him play some competitive golf again. It's really cool. That's part of the cool part of this tournament, we got all of these past champions coming to play. It's nice.

Q. You have an interesting practice swing, your real swing is kind of upright, right? Your practice swings is a little flat, you know, the shaft going over the shoulder and going over this shoulder, is that a conscious thing to make it less upright?

GEOFF OGILVY: I mean, it's kind of like swinging a golf club like a baseball bat. You raise it up a little bit. It's effectively pivot related getting stuck. The hand falling behind it is the byproduct of a bad pivot, really. It just simplifies the pivot and your body just turns better. Mine does anyway. That's why I make the baseball swing. That's why I call the drill a baseball swing drill. You can go high with it, just getting a feel that it works really.

Q. You talked a little bit about the changes. Will those make the course play tougher do you think? And if so, why?

GEOFF OGILVY: In some cases for sure. I don't know if the fourth tee went back, but it feels like it's longer than it was. It definitely went down three or four feet. I think which makes it almost feel uphill. But that's always been a hard hole. The third is going to play a little trickier off the tee. It looks exactly the same, but the bunkers are 20 yards further to carry. They are not such an extreme carry, but our line has changed 20 yards from where it was the last 10 years. So getting it into your head you have to aim it 20 yards further right than you have been for the last eight or nine years is hard. You are used to teeing it up right next to the right-hand tee marker and hitting a driver in the normal spot, r the 3-wood in a normal spot. That line is now moved over and that's hard to get into your head. When you change a golf course subtlety like they have here, that we've played so many times. 12 is the same. 12 we've always blown it over the left bunker. Not many guys will be able to get it over there now. So it's hard to get it in your head you have to aim it up the fairway as opposed to aim it over the bunker. So it's more that sort of trickiness. The par-3, 13, I think it might actually be easier than it was before, even though it's 10 or 15 yards longer. 14, it's adjusting to the bunkers that are on the inside of the dogleg, not the outside of the dogleg. You are so used to stepping it up, autopilot, the normal spot, your driving lines are going to change on the 14th hole. It's more awkward changes like that, rather than out and out difficulty.

JOHN BUSH: Anything else? Thanks for coming by and play well this week.