“It’s good to dip a toe in the ocean again” — Ogilvy on his return to the PGA Tour for his first tournaments since 2018.
Geoff Ogilvy says playing at the Barracuda Championship two weeks ago and the Rocket Mortgage Classic this week have wet his whistle. They are his first starts on the PGA Tour since 2018, and so everyone from Webb Simpson to caddies to Tour officials are stopping what they’re doing to say hello.
“It’s good to dip a toe in the ocean again,” he says. He shakes his head when he reports his opening-round score on Thursday at Detroit Golf Club, a 2-over 73.
“Rubbish,” he says.
He’s played plenty of golf since moving back home to Australia at Victoria Golf Club, his longtime playground in his native Melbourne, Peninsula-Kingswood, where he helped renovate the North course, and at famed Royal Melbourne, where he finally became a member. “It’s been a long-term project,” he says. “They never really had pros as members.”
But Ogilvy is quick to point at the difference between golf and tournament golf and as he put it, he hasn’t been “flexing that muscle.”
“It’s a muscle you have to flex,” he says.
Ogilvy is scheduled to be back in September for the Presidents Cup, where he will serve as “chief sandwich maker,” otherwise known as a vice captain for International Team Captain Trevor Immelman. When the biennial match is complete, he says he will attempt to play some more.
“At some point,” he says, “you realize this is what you do.”
Trevor Immelman will captain the 2022 International squad in Charlotte.
Making his debut as captain of the International team for the upcoming Presidents Cup, Trevor Immelman can call on plenty of experience from his coaching staff.
Immelman, a South African who played in the Presidents Cup twice and was an assistant to Ernie Els in 2019, named his four vice captains Wednesday: Canadian Mike Weir, South Korean K.J. Choi, Australian Geoff Ogilvy and Colombian Camilo Villegas.
The U.S. leads the series 11-1-1. The Americans came from behind on the final day in 2019 at Royal Melbourne in Australia to win, 16-14. This year’s matches are Sept. 22-25 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Weir, who competed in the Presidents Cup five times and is one of five International players with 10 more match wins, will make his third appearance as a vice captain. He has eight PGA Tour titles, including the 2003 Masters, and one PGA Tour Champions victory.
Choi, who played in three editions of the Presidents Cup, will be making his third appearance as an assistant captain. He has won eight PGA Tour titles, including the 2011 Players Championship, and one PGA Tour Champions victory.
Ogilvy, who played in three Presidents Cups, has eight career PGA Tour victories, including the 2006 U.S. Open, and won two of Australia’s biggest titles – the 2008 Australian PGA and 2010 Australian Open.
Villegas will make his debut as an assistant. Villegas is the only player from Colombia to compete in the Presidents Cup, doing so in 2009. He’s won four times on the PGA Tour.
“The comradery that continues to grow within this team is irreplaceable,” Weir said in a release. “We can all sense the momentum that is building, and it’s been exciting to see Trevor’s incredible dedication and focus on his role. I can’t wait to see what tournament week holds for us and to be a part of the 2022 team.”
Said Ogilvy: “After getting a glimpse into the future of our team in 2019, I am very excited to return as a captain’s assistant. The collection of international players has only had time to improve and that is evident when you look at guys like Cameron Smith, Hideki Matsuyama and Joaquin Niemann, who have had tremendous success on Tour in the last year.
“I can’t wait to see what they bring to the table under Trevor’s captaincy.”
Ogilvy has big plans for his new event in Australia.
Geoff Ogilvy has his eyes on both the men’s and women’s Australian Opens. Not to play, but to surpass.
The 2006 U.S. Open champion, alongside tournament director and golf course architect Mike Clayton, has created a new professional golf tournament in Melbourne with a unique format that is set to be held at four world-class golf courses. The news was first reported by 10 News First in Melbourne.
The Sandbelt Invitational, Dec. 20-23, 2021, will be played at 2019 Presidents Cup host Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Yarra Yarra and Peninsula Kingwood and will include both men and women, as well as a mix of professionals and amateurs.
“We called a few courses and they were almost unanimously instantaneously, ‘yes, were in.’” said Ogilvy to 10 News.
US Open champion @GeoffOgilvyGolf has launched a brand new pro golf tournament in Melbourne – The Sandbelt Invitational. Held on 4 world-class courses, the event boasts an unorthodox format and a vision to become Australia's premier pro tournament.@10NewsFirstMelbpic.twitter.com/X1IezluMRn
“These kids need something to play in,” added Clayton. “They’re still playing football and cricket but there’s a whole bunch of really good players that have had nothing to play for almost two years.”
Ogilvy and Clayton have big plans for the future of the Sandbelt. The eight-time winner on the PGA Tour said that he plans for the event to be televised in the future and that he wants the tournament to rival the men’s and women’s Australian Opens on the calendar.
“The men and women thing, I think golf has always been a bit too segregated. I think we need to get everyone back into the same sort of pile,” said Ogilvy, who was disappointed in the cancellation of the national opens once again in 2021. He even thinks the separate opens should be a mixed event similar to the Victorian Open.
“For an event that everybody can come to, if it inspires the kids to play golf and gets people out there walking to come see their friends and be social, just like the races or footy or something,” said Ogilvy. “It’s more than just the game.”
All these years later, Geoff Ogilvy has never watched a replay from start to finish of his victory at the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot.
All these years later, after winning his one and only major championship at the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Geoff Ogilvy has never watched a replay from start to finish. His replica silver trophy? It’s tucked away in a box at his rental in Melbourne, Australia.
“It had been on a shelf, but I’m not really the type to look at myself in the mirror,” he says during a remember-when session via Zoom. “My favorite mementos from Winged Foot are my locker-room nameplate and a Scotty Cameron limited-edition putter cover that was black and had yellow taxi cabs on it. It was mint.”
Ogilvy breaks into a wide smile as the memories of a wild day coming flooding back.
“I’ve only really seen highlight packages,” he concedes. “I’m real familiar with the last four holes, but the rest is a blur.”
What a day it was when he signed for a five-over-par 285 total to win by one shot. It was the first time a U.S. Open winner finished over par since Andy North won with a score of one over in 1978 and the highest winning score since 1974, when Hale Irwin won with a 7-over 287, also at Winged Foot’s West Course.
Ogilvy finished with four consecutive pars, including a chip-in at 17, to overcome Phil Mickelson, who had a two-shot lead with four holes to play before sending a final drive onto a tent and an approach shot into a tree. Ogilvy joined 1981 winner David Graham as the only Australians to win the championship. On a day when six players either held or shared the lead, it wasn’t just Mickelson who cratered down the stretch. There was Colin Montgomerie, Jim Furyk and Padraig Harrington, too.
Phil Mickelson holds his head during the final round of the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York. Photo by Stan Honda/AFP via Getty Images
“I did everything I could do, but I got incredibly lucky with four or five truly world-class players on the leaderboard and it just worked out that I won,” Ogilvy says.
To those who always will believe Ogilvy didn’t win the U.S. Open so much as Mickelson lost it, Ogilvy senses that tide has turned.
“As time has gone on, the conversations about it with me have become how I won it,” he says. “It’s changed in other people’s minds.”
Rewind to that fateful Sunday and Ogilvy began the final round at 3-over par after rounds of 71-70-72, in the second-to-last group with Ian Poulter. Ogilvy made birdies at Nos. 5 and 6 to claim the outright lead. He often has been reminded of Johnny Miller’s commentary on NBC.
“Johnny said, ‘At least now he can tell his grandkids that he led the U.S. Open on a Sunday.’ I don’t think he meant it that way,” Ogilvy says, “but it came across as there’s no way in hell he’s going to stay there.”
Then again, Ogilvy concedes that after a sloppy bogey at No. 11, he thought he had squandered his chances. Sensing the wind coming out of his man’s sail after Ogilvy bogeyed 14 to go 5 over, caddie Alistair (Squirrel) Matheson delivered a pep talk that provided the necessary lift.
“It felt like the tournament was gone,” Ogilvy says. “There’s a moment in every 72-hole tournament where you realize you’re not going to win, and it can come on the first hole on Thursday or the 72nd hole on Sunday, and the later it comes the harder it is to handle. I was a little dejected. Squirrel was like, ‘What do you mean? You’ve had a great U.S. Open. Let’s par the last four holes and see what happens.’ It just sounded so sensible.”
Ogilvy scrambled for par at 16, then chipped in from the fringe from 30 feet at 17 when he thought his hopes for victory were dead and gone.
“It was lucky that it went in, but it was the type of chip you saw players hole all the time,” he says. “As soon as it went in my whole head space flipped again. I started thinking, ‘Wow, that’s what happens to people that win these tournaments.’”
Up ahead, Harrington had played bogey-free golf for 15 holes only to finish with three consecutive closing bogeys. But he later confided to Ogilvy that his Winged Foot experience convinced him his day would come – and he would go on to claim three majors over the span of the next two years. Furyk, the 2003 U.S. Open champion, three-putted No. 15 from 20 feet and bogeyed the final hole from a greenside bunker when he missed a 5-footer to finish 6 over.
Montgomerie had detonated his own fireworks at 17, just ahead of Ogilvy, draining a 40-foot birdie to tie Mickelson at 4 over. But after a perfect drive in the fairway at the 450-yard, dogleg-left finale, Montgomerie had what must have felt like an interminable wait while playing competitor Vijay Singh received a ruling before playing his second shot from 172 yards. Montgomerie switched from a 6-iron to 7-iron. Regarded as one of the best mid-iron players of his day, Montgomerie simply had to hit one of his trademark left-to-right shots and watch it slide toward the hole.
Colin Montgomerie walks to the 18th hole after landing his approach short of the green during the final round of the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York. Photo by Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images
“What kind of shot was that?” Montgomerie said moments after he made contact. He dumped his ball into the high rough short and right of the green.
Montgomerie chopped out 35 feet past the hole and three-putted for double bogey to shoot 71 and finish at 6 over. Ogilvy didn’t realize how badly Montgomerie had choked until he saw the greenside scoreboard. In retrospect, he considers Montgomerie’s failure to be the most glaring.
“Everyone thinks of Phil, but I’d say Monty because he got one shot closer to winning,” Ogilvy said. “He hit the 18th fairway and Phil didn’t. You can argue that Monty, given his track record, with a 7-iron in the fairway, shouldn’t make worse than par. He was the most out of character making the score he did on 18. Phil was a Phil type of six. It was Phil, right.”
Ogilvy smashed his best drive of the week at 18 only to have it roll into a sand-covered divot in the heart of the fairway, but he refused to be disheartened. He posed on his 9-iron, thinking it was all over the flag, but it failed to scale the green’s false front, spinning off the green and leaving a treacherous 30-yard chip that he deemed “a 9 out of 10 in difficulty level.” He did well to stop it 6 feet past the hole.
“As I walked around the green reading the putt, I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, I may have to change my flight and hotel.’ I was thinking the worst, but when I got over the putt my head was in the right place again and I made it,” he says. “I was patting myself on the back walking off the green thinking, ‘The worst I can finish is second and I might make a playoff.’”
Two days after his 36th birthday, Mickelson had a chance to win his third consecutive major championship, the fourth of his career, and go to the British Open with a chance to join Tiger Woods and Bobby Jones as the only men ever to win four consecutive major championships.
Leading by one stroke at 4 over, Mickelson hadn’t hit a fairway on the back nine and only two all day, yet he selected driver at 18. In typical Mickelson fashion, he didn’t have a 3-wood in his bag and later explained, “I felt like if I hit the 4-wood and missed the fairway, I’d be too far back to do any good. I tried to go to my bread-and-butter shot – a baby-carve slice – and just get it in the fairway.”
Mickelson blasted a boomerang slice that crashed off the Champions Pavilion, a hospitality tent 60 yards left of the fairway. Ogilvy, for one, doesn’t question Mickelson’s club choice despite his wildness off the tee.
“That he even had a chance on Sunday was just outrageous. Everyone else in the field shoots 80-plus,” Ogilvy says. “But it’s the second shot that lost him the championship. He was 200 yards away. If he punches out, he has 100 yards to get up and down to win or a playoff. He would’ve had a putt inside 15 feet.”
Ogilvy compared it to David Toms laying up on the 72nd hole of the 2001 PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club, wedging to 12 feet and sinking the putt to win the title by one stroke over none other than Mickelson. So why didn’t Lefty opt to do the same here? Ogilvy has a theory.
“His handicap is how good he is at that shot. Most players don’t have that shot so they don’t see it and don’t even consider that it’s an option. They just wedge it out. They’re forced into the right decision because they don’t have the skills,” Ogilvy says. “Unfortunately, Phil has the skills to hit it from anywhere. He thought he had the shot, so you can’t second-guess that because he can pull off the impossible.”
Ogilvy watched most of the Mickelson meltdown from the scorer’s hut before being led to the locker room. Mickelson’s 3-iron from 210 yards hit a Norway maple branch and his ball bounced back toward him, advancing just 30 yards. His third plugged in the sand fronting the green. As Mickelson blasted out of the bunker and across the green into thick rough, Montgomerie said to a reporter: “Why do we do this? Why do we play this game?”
Mickelson made his only double bogey of the week and settled for his fourth of a now record six runner-up finishes.
Phil Mickelson reacts on the 18th green after missing his chip for bogey during the final round of the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York.
“This one hurts more than any other tournament because I had it won,” Mickelson said. “I just can’t believe I did that. I am such an idiot.”
As Ogilvy watched everything unfold, he remembers a moment when he thought, “Wow, I might actually win this,” he says. “It was this very quick realization that this was going to work out. They put a camera in my face and I hugged my wife (Juli, who was five months pregnant) and the rest was a blur.”
By the time Ogilvy finished his media duties that evening, it was late and he returned to his hotel for some revelry with caddies and a few remaining players, including Adam Scott, who hopped off Ernie Els’ plane, and they took turns drinking beer from the trophy.
“The big memory is how dusty I was,” Ogilvy says. “It was a good hangover.”
The next morning he was rushed to New York City at 6 a.m. and endured the car wash of interviews at Fox, ESPN and CNN as well as reading the Top-10 list on “Late Show with David Letterman.”
“It was a glimpse into that world for a day seeing what politicians and public figures do all the time,” he says. “It was like, ‘Wow, this is some way to live.'”
Ogilvy won his latest of eight PGA Tour titles in 2014. In 2019 he hit the pause button on Tour life and moved his family back to Australia, not far from Royal Melbourne, where he caddied in his youth. But at age 43, he says he’s not done yet.
“I’m just enjoying being with the kids too much to do 25 events in a year,” says Ogilvy, the father of Phoebe, 13 and born four months after his Winged Foot win, Jasper (12) and Harvey (10). “We’ll see what the world lets us do.”
Ogilvy planned to play some Tour events out of the past-champions exemption category this summer, but that got squashed by COVID-19. He’s kept sharp hitting off a mat into a comforter and pre-COVID enjoyed carrying his own bag with a half set of clubs.
“Golf is a lot more fun to play when you don’t have to count up your score,” he says.
That’s not to say he doesn’t wish he was competing in the 120th U.S. Open on Sept. 17-20. He’ll watch from home to see if a certain left-hander can get redemption and complete the career Grand Slam.
“It’s hard to imagine to be honest but U.S. Opens, especially at places like Winged Foot, are Phil-type places because they are short-game tests,” Ogilvy says. “It’s who can make par when they drive it in the rough. He’s been the best for the last 25 years.”
Just not as good as Ogilvy one June Sunday in 2006.
Imagine if half the European Ryder Cup team showed to the Vic Open to support a mixed event co-sanctioned by the LPGA and European Tour.
A childhood friend recently retired from the military and moved back home to Florida with his wife. My husband and I had them over to watch football a couple times over the winter, and we talked about his combat tours and our years growing up together at the local muni. I’ve often thanked Craig for his service to our country. But until I sat down to write this column, I hadn’t thought to thank him for being cool with a girl crashing the party all those years ago.
Craig, Brad, Morgan, Chris, Kyle, Neil, the list goes on. I probably would’ve kept on playing basketball and quit golf if I had to practice on my own every day.
Twenty-five years later, the need hasn’t changed much. For the innovative ISPS Handa Vic Open to get to the next level, heavy-hitting male players need to step up and show support. It’s the only way the event can garner the worldwide attention it deserves. Imagine if half the European Ryder Cup team showed at 13th Beach Golf Links.
Former World No. 1 Stacy Lewis made her debut in the tournament last week. This marked the second year the Vic Open has been co-sanctioned by both the LPGA and European Tour. The women’s field was substantially stronger this year, despite the purse, $1.1 million, being the lowest on tour.
On the men’s side, Haotong Li, was the highest-ranked player at No. 79. Australia’s Geoff Ogilvy, an eight-time winner on the PGA Tour, was both the biggest draw and the most vocal.
“We should do this more often,” Ogilvy said. “The fact that this happens only once in a year is just nonsense.”
Bless him.
Geoff Ogilvy tees off during the second round of the ISPS Handa Vic Open at 13th Beach Golf Club. (Photo: Jack Thomas/Getty Images)
Lewis felt that most of the men in the field embraced the fact that women were there playing the same course at the same time for equal money. But it will take more male stars to grow the concept.
“We need top players,” said Lewis. “I know Geoff Ogilvy’s here and we need some top players to really step up and support this, especially if they have little girls, you know? Let’s give this opportunity to your daughter. That’s a lot of what motivates me now.”
To help encourage more players to make the trip, Lewis suggests cutting down the field from 144 players on both sides to 50 each for the men and women. Make it a limited-field event rather than a full field, with one cut for the last day. Everyone gets a check.
Guaranteed money will attract more top players to compete. And shrinking the field from 288 to 100 will cut costs for the title sponsor.
Ogilvy pointed to the success of back-to-back U.S. Opens at Pinehurst in 2014. Said he’d like to see concurrent Australian Opens at Royal Melbourne East, Royal Melbourne West, or Peninsula North, South.
“It really was successful at Pinehurst when Martin (Kaymer) won and Michelle Wie won the next week,” said Ogilvy. “We all loved it. … That’s the U.S. Open I watched the most of the girls because I was interested to see how they played the course that I just played.”
Karrie Webb would like to see Australia replicate the Vic Open model for men and women at all the country’s state opens. It would help female players especially feel more prepared before going to the next level.
“If we could create that sort of pathway here in Australia so that the guys and girls have some tournament experience before they go overseas,” said Webb, “I think it makes that next step or that jump in level that much more attainable than, ‘I just played the Australian Amateur and now I’m going to LPGA Q-School.’ ”
Innovation has reinvigorated the Vic Open. It will take more outside-the-box thinking to grow it further. Male voices like Ogilvy’s are needed to challenge the status quo. Or as he put it, to “open your eyes” to a world beyond the PGA Tour.
What if players turned down these outlandish appearance fees in Saudi Arabia and instead made a true grow-the-game trek to a tournament like the Vic Open? It’s not going to pad the bank account, but it certainly could be a catalyst for real change. Something meaningful.
Britain’s Meghan MacLaren, who recently told James Corrigan of The Telegraph that she wouldn’t be competing in the lucrative Saudi Ladies Championship because of how sport is being used in the Kingdom, penned a blog on equality following her play at the Vic Open.
“Equal treatment is where all the questions lie,” wrote MacLaren, “where all those with stakes in this game must look at themselves and ask if they can do better. Ask themselves what they would say when their daughter asks why playing golf may not be a viable career path when her brother didn’t have to wonder.”
Virginia Elena Carta, a thoughtful Italian who won the NCAA Championship at Duke and is continuing her studies at Cambridge before turning professional, posted a photo on twitter of her new college golf team.
She’s the only female.
When you talk about breaking barriers and you do it with the most amazing team (Cambridge Blues Golf Team) of supportive, kind and joyful guys. Thank you 😘 pic.twitter.com/gbt0u6Llkx
On weekends, Carta plays 72-hole matches from the back tees alongside the men against the members of various host clubs. The main event against Oxford will feature only a handful of players (note the guys wearing the light blue jackets) from the Cambridge team. Carta said only three or four women in the history of the match have played varsity for the Blues. The match dates back to the 1800s.
These 11 young men are helping Carta stay sharp before she heads back to the U.S. to try and compete on the LPGA.
“When you talk about breaking barriers and you do it with the most amazing team of supportive, kind and joyful guys,” Carta wrote. “Thank you.”
