Golf Digest: Geoff Ogilvy on Those Three-Footers and More

[Dogfish Head]

Geoff Ogilvy​

LIKE HIM OR NOT, GEOFF OGILVY has often come across as thoughtful and unfiltered. In the December 2014 "My Shot," Ogilvy, tagged "The Thinker," covered a lot of ground. Following are three hand-picked excerpts.

On three-foot par putts:

STUBBORNNESS AND DETERMINATION really come into play on the three-foot putt for par. But when you face 50 of them a week in competition for six straight weeks, they begin to erode you. Over the course of a 30-year career, they beat you up. I don't take them lightly, even in practice, because I don't want to form bad habits. So I grind over every one of them. I yearn for the day when I retire and play friendly games with my mates, and when I don't like the look of a certain three-footer, just raking it away and walking to the next tee. That is true freedom.​

On the state of golf writing:

GOLF WRITING on the whole isn't as enjoyable as it once was. I love reading Bobby Jones' books, and it's a shame there's nothing like them being put out today. There are few masters of the craft left. Literary geniuses like Tom Callahan are disappearing because there are fewer platforms for them. Golf books, save for instruction titles, don't sell well, so writers are less motivated to develop that literary ability. It's all very fast. And let's face it, there are fewer golf legends to write about. The Internet has made it impossible for a mysterious person like Ben Hogan to exist.​

And the best ball striker on tour?

SERGIO GARCIA has gone from being merely a superb ball-striker to being the best in the game. Sergio has always been a "flusher," someone who hits it solid. But today he plays golf utterly the way it was meant to be played, drawing or fading the ball at will, probably the way Hogan did it.​

Read "The Thinker" at GolfDigest.com.


Source: Golf Digest: Geoff Ogilvy on Those Three-Footers and More

 

[IrishGolfer]

Interesting observation on Sergio.
Always like Ogilvy, a true pro, ground out a career and is very down to earth.

 

[TheTrueReview]

Right on IG. He's always been a talented golfer. His solitary major wasn't a flash in the pan like many of the other "one slam guys".

From memory, it was putting woes that causes a slide a couple of years ago. But he's on the improve with a tourney win last year. Hoping for much more from him.

 

[IrishGolfer]

I thought he got injured, skiing?

 

[TheTrueReview]

I thought he got injured, skiing?

He sliced open a finger on coral in Hawaii just before Kapalua in 2011. He was two-time defending champion at the time.
From memory, his wife had their 2nd child a few months later. [Cue losing focus due to new bundle of joy]
Then his putting started to falter IMO causing his slide, which was strange because up to that point he didn't have a weakness in his game.

I think his putting mojo is coming back, hence his climb back up the rankings.