Ogilvy knows himself
Australian's game is erasing confusion with Ogilvie
Geoff Ogilvy's U.S. Open victory last year has done wonders for his public profile.
Yes, the Australian is still mistaken for fellow tour pro Joe Ogilvie, but not nearly as much.
"I'm down to about two 'Joes' a day," Ogilvy said, referring to Ogilvie, who was born in Ohio and now lives in Texas.
Ogilvy, who was born in Adelaide, Australia, and Ogilvie have played on the PGA Tour together since 2001, and it wasn't until Ogilvy won for the first time in 2005 that some of the confusion lessened. (Ogilvie hasn't won yet, but he does have three runner-up finishes.)
Still, the two have a running joke that they should create a law firm and call it Ogilvy and Ogilvie.
Adding to the confusion is that their bios are on facing pages in this year's PGA Tour media guide.
Ogilvy said that in the early years they "regularly got each other's stuff in lockers" at the courses, and they still get congratulated when the other one plays well.
That happened in 2004 when Ogilvie finished second in New Orleans after being overtaken by Vijay Singh.
"At Wachovia, the next week in the Pro-Am, I got congratulated between every green and tee except one. So 17 times I got congratulated, 'Sorry for coming in second last week,'" Ogilvy said.
"It's just funny," said the Aussie, who is age 29 to Ogilvie's 32. "It is spelled different. I know it's not the most common name in the world, but if you actually look, it looks different to me. One starts with a G and J, first name. I can see it at first, if you hear people talk about it, but if you see it written down, I don't understand it."
His fellow players and serious fans already knew about Ogilvy's talent before he won in Tucson in 2005 and followed it with two wins in 2006, including the U.S. Open.
"He's a strong player, and he hits it a long way," said Davis Love III. "He's got great hands and putts very, very well. He's a very, very good player."
Ogilvy, who didn't attend college and turned pro at age 19, became a true star in 2006. In addition to his U.S. Open victory, he won the World Golf Championship Match Play title early in the season and finished no worse than 16th in any of the four majors.
For the season, he earned $4.3 million, placing him fifth on the money list.
This season, Ogilvy already has one runner-up finish, in the Match Play Championship.
Ogilvy won his U.S. Open title last June at Winged Foot Golf Club, two months after his solid Masters Tournament debut. He finished tied for 16th, but was in the running for the title in the final round.
"On Sunday, I had an eagle putt on No. 13 to go 4- or 5-under on the round that if it had gone, I'd been a couple of shots behind," Ogilvy said.
He three-putted No. 13 from 15 feet, though, and had to settle for par.
"I think the moral of the story is, don't hit it above the 13th hole on Sunday," Ogilvy said.
He then bogeyed Nos. 14, 16 and 17, finishing with 1-under-par 71.
"It was a bit of a back-nine collapse," said Ogilvy, who still termed his debut at Augusta National as "pretty good." "I think my game is well-suited to Augusta. I think it is a course I can play well at."
For the week, he shot 1-over 289.
"It was fun," the Australian said. "The worst part about Sunday is you don't get to play Monday. You don't get to play there for another year."
At the FBR Open in late January, Ogilvy was critical of some of the changes over the past few years at Augusta National, where 520 yards have been added to the course and trees have been strategically planted.
"Why would you touch up the Mona Lisa when it's been fine for that long? Why?" Ogilvy asked.
At the Arnold Palmer Invitational in mid-March in Orlando, Fla., Ogilvy took the high road concerning those comments.
"Whatever Augusta does is right for Augusta National," he said. "That's the way they run the ship. It's not whether I think it's right or wrong."
One reason Ogilvy's game has blossomed is that he's not so hard on himself anymore.
"It's still there," he said of his negativity on the course. "It's just a lot less. If 90 percent of my talk (to myself) was negative and 10 percent positive, now it's 70 percent positive and 30 negative. I'm just slowly improving in that area.
"There's nothing more damaging than negativity. It takes you awhile to realize that when you're young.
"There's a process. There's not like, that's it, I'm going to be great. When I'm 21, listen, everyone is wrong and I'm right. And at 25, you're like, 'Well, I'm actually wrong,' or I don't know how to be right. And now, I'm working this out.
"Some guys work it out when they are younger, and some guys don't ever work it out. So I just think it's growing up."
Dale Lynch, who worked with the young Ogilvy at the Victorian Institute of Sport in Australia, knew his student would have to contain his emotions before he would have the chance to become a great player.
"For him to keep improving, that was an area he needed to get on top of," Lynch told Golf World magazine after Ogilvy won the U.S. Open. "As everyone around him has seen, there were certain situations in which his competitiveness and his will to win would get the best of him. He would get too frustrated and too angry and that would have a negative impact.
"If you watch him now, he's a very, very calm individual. That's one area of his game he's improved, which is one of the reasons he's holding the (U.S. Open) trophy."
That Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters by a tournament-record 12 shots despite shooting 40 in the opening nine of the first round is an example of staying positive when things aren't going your way, Ogilvy said.
"I've won plenty of tournaments with 15 bad shots in the first 12 holes," he said. "If you bogey, just stop worrying about it and try to birdie the next hole."
Reach David Westin at (706) 823-3224 or david.westin@augustachronicle.com.
