Date: March 26, 2008
Author: Rob O'Gorman

Ogilvy: Tiger is beatable

Geoff Ogilvy says his weekend win at the CA Championship, which ended Tiger Wood&aposs seven-event winning streak, proved the world No.1 was not unbeatable. The South Australian led they way in Miami from start to finish and survived a nervous overnight wait after a weather delay forced him to return to the course on Tuesday to complete his final nine holes. Even after a horror week on the greens, Woods mustered a late charge to finish only two strokes behind Ogilvy to end a remarkable run of victories. Ogilvy believed talk of Woods, who had won three consecutive World Golf Championship events entering the tournament, going unbeaten through the season was jumping the gun a bit. “There always starts to become chatter that nobody&aposs either got the nerve to beat him or people are flying the white flag or other guys don&apost want to win enough,” Ogilvy said. “I don&apost believe that&aposs true and (it&aposs) frustrating because everybody out there is trying as hard as they can to beat him, he&aposs just really, really good.” “He&aposs obviously without a doubt beyond the best golfer in the world at the moment (and) he&aposs on the fast track to becoming the best golfer of all time.” Ogilvy&aposs victory boosted him up seven places in the world golf rankings and back inside the top ten after he managed only seven top-10 finishes during 2007. He said his opening round seven-under par 65 was the best he had struck the ball in over twelve months and set him up for the rest of the tournament. “If anything my game probably deteriorated a tiny little bit everyday,” he said. “We had lots of rain delays so we were on and off the golf course so it&aposs hard to stay sharp with your golf game when it was like that but I hit the ball really well.” Ogilvy said an extended break during the off-season when he didn&apost pick up a golf club for six weeks had given him a fresh outlook and given him more motivation to return to the top of his game. After a breakthrough year in 2006 that saw him win both the World Match Play Championship and US Open, Ogilvy said he did not feel weighed down by increased interest from the golfing world. “I guess you know those expectations are there but no expectations that I feel from anywhere else probably come close to the expectations I put on myself,” he said. “If I was ever frustrated at not reaching expectations, it wasn&apost not reaching anybody else&aposs it was not reaching my own.”