Geoff Ogilvy, Welcome to the World of Outrageous Expectations

by Ryan Ballengee on Jan 13, 2009 11:01 AM EST

Geoff Ogilvy won the Mercedes Benz Championship by six strokes. It was his third win in 12 months, all in events of significance for one reason or another. Add them to his 2006 US Open, another WGC, and a victory in Scottsdale on the PGA Tour, and all of a sudden, Ogilvy is now the new challenger to Tiger Woods.

Over at golf.com, the roundtable discussion said that they now think that Ogilvy will wins more majors than Greg Norman. While that's not hard to do, they're indicating that Geoff Ogilvy is now the banner for Australian golf and could be their hope to claim golf's top ranking again.

Brian Murphy at Yahoo! Sports poses it as more of a question that he answers by comparing Ogilvy to the company of major winners since 2000. He answers resoundingly in the affirmative, but with a wink and a nod that this may not be totally welcomed or warranted.

The question for the media is whether or not they will hedge their columns with information about Woods' injury and recovery. With a weakened Woods and an Official World Golf Ranking that hurts Woods and his small schedule more by the week, his number one ranking is somewhat vulnerable. Still, Ogilvy - now world #6 - is 6.05 ranking points behind Woods. But, he is a miniscule 2.57 points behind second-ranked Sergio Garcia. Let's shoot for that first.

Even if Ogilvy (or someone else) were to find a way to usurp golf's primere position from Woods, it would be under a cloud of circumstance in much the same way that David Duval's 1999-2000 run and Vijay Singh's $10 million season (pre-Fed Ex Cup) were. Yes, those were incredible runs, but critics would point to Woods' swing changes during those time periods and say that Woods was not at full capacity to challenge. Were another player to go on such a run this year, Tiger defenders would inevitably cry foul.

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Tiger doesn't care...

…he has already set a record for weeks at #1 that may never be broken. He, and everyone on Tour, knows the situation – a spectacular season like Vijay’s could move someone up the ladder to the #1 spot – and everybody will cheer – but they will also know that whoever takes the top spot is just a footnote until Tiger gets back to 100%.

The thing about the rankings that hurts Tiger most is the “lost points” column. When all you do is finish first or second, when you don’t play an event you played the previous two seasons, you lose more points than anybody else.

Still – Sergio has never shown a propensity to play strong golf over a season, so making up 3.5 points to pass Tiger will be tough. Harrington’s reputation has been at The British for two years and a PGA without Tiger, and the rest of his season was up and down. He plays a lot, so he has to really step up to make up 4.65 points. Does Phil care enough ? I don’t think so. He thinks the only tournaments that matter are the majors so he slides through the rest of the season and doesn’t have the intensity to play well in the majors for the same 4.65 points.

Vijay is interesting – the ageless wonder still has plenty in the tank physically (once he gets past the minor surgery) – but does he have the mental drive ? He’s 4.82 points back.

Ogilvy has the game – but does he have the drive to be #1 ? He seems more like the professional golfer who plays for the money and less for the fame. When his talent spikes, he can beat anybody – but he’s not in it for the fame. He has less than half the points Tiger has – and that has been impossible to make up through the years – but Tiger’s “down” years were not complete abscences. IF Tiger gives it a run in March or April and decides that the knee just isn’t ready – MAYBE Ogilvy throws everything in gear to chase the ranking. Judging from my two conversations with Ogilvy – he REALLY doesn’t appreciate this kind of attention. He doesn’t like getting phone calls at all hours and seems to prefer to let his clubs do his talking.

Can Robert Karlsson, Anthony Kim or Camilo Villegas take advantage of the situation and move way up this year ? They can’t get to Tiger, but there is no reason they can’t be top 5 if they can put the hammer down for the whole season. None of them has 5 points – but moving up to second isn’t a complete impossibility.

"this ball will fit in that fairway"

by courtgolf on Jan 13, 2009 11:33 AM EST reply actions