John Huggan

Chatting it up about golf
June 20, 2006

John Huggan is the European correspondent for both Golf Digest and Golf World. He is also the golf columnist for Scotland on Sunday. He lives in Dunbar, Scotland, where he hits many very bad half-wedge shots from around 75-yards or so.

Today Huggan chats about some of the things that the newly crowned U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy thinks about.

- GolfObserver editors

Geoff Ogilvy and the modern game

The first thing that needs to be said amidst all the inevitable fuss and bother that surrounds the brace of high-profile explosions that were Phil Mickelson and Colin Montgomerie in the 106th US Open at Winged Foot, is that this was an important victory for golf. Quite apart from being one of the most accomplished and stylish players on the planet, the new champion, Geoff Ogilvy, has the potential to be just the sort of wise, high-profile spokesman the professional game needs if it is to rescue itself from the technological black hole into which it is currently headed.

Blessed with the sort of curious mind top level golf seems to be almost bereft of these days, Ogilvy took the time last winter, along with former European Tour players Bob Shearer and Mike Clayton, to play Royal Melbourne with ten-year old balls and wooden headed clubs.

"It was a whole new level of fun," he says, smiling at the memory. "You had to hit it well for the ball to go anywhere. The difference between a good hit and a bad one with a driver was about 40 yards. With a modern driver you can hit the ball anywhere on the face really. The difference is only about five yards. Only afterwards, when I had thought about it more, did I get depressed by all of that."

Photo: ©Richard Heathcote/Getty Images Geoff Ogilvy holds the U.S. Open trophy after winning the championship by one stroke over Phil Mickelson, Colin Montgomerie and Jim Furyk.

Indeed, the direction in which the modern game in general is headed has long been a concern for Ogilvy. Despite the flashy Puma gear he is contracted to wear on the course, underneath the logos beats the heart of an unabashed traditionalist. When he arrived at Augusta National earlier this year for his Masters debut, for example, he was appalled at what he found.

"I've read a few of Bobby Jones' books," he points out. "I don't think he'd be that flustered by the addition of length at Augusta. I think he'd have done the same, given the neglect of equipment by the USGA and the R&A. But there is no way he'd have grown rough. He'd have kept it 100 yards from trees to trees. And every blade of grass on the course would have been cut short.

"I mean, with the greens they have there, you don't need rough. They are always going to be firm. Which is what Jones wanted. His philosophy was, ?okay, you have 100 yards to hit into, you tell me where you want to go.' Move the pin ten feet and the other side of the fairway becomes the place to be. That's the aspect that has been lost. And if Augusta misses the point, what hope has golf got?"

Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Images Geoff Ogilvy tees off on the 18th hole at last year's British Open in which he finished T5th.

Then there is last year's Open Championship at St. Andrews.

"My mind keeps going back to the Road Hole," he says. "It's the most fearsome hole in golf and yet they had to grow all that silly rough up the right hand side. If they hadn't we would have been hitting chip shots to the green. Symbolically, they could not allow that. So they had to do it. That golf hole is the reason the golf ball needs to be changed. It's no fun with the modern ball. I was hitting a 4-iron off the tee at the Road Hole! Are you kidding me?"

Oh yes, and Pinehurst No. 2 for last year's US Open?

Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Images Ogilvy felt that all of the bunkers were in the rough at Pinehurst.

"All of the bunkers were in the rough. In fact, not one of them was within ten yards of the fairway. And all the best angles were taken away by the USGA growing long grass in the spots where the best drives should have been allowed to finish. It was a mess."

In the midst of such specifics, Ogilvy has also taken time to analyse the bigger picture.

"Two important aspects of golf have gone in completely the wrong direction," he maintains. "Most things are fine. Greens are generally better, for example. But the whole point of golf has been lost. Ben Hogan said it best. His thing was that you don't measure a good drive by how far it goes; you analyse its quality by its position relative to the next target. That doesn't exist in golf any more.

"The biggest problem today is tournament organisers trying to create a winning score. When did low scores become bad? At what point did the quality of your course become dependent on its difficulty? That was when golf lost the plot. The winning score should be dictated by the weather.

"The other thing is course set up. Especially in America there is too much rough and greens are way too soft. Then, when low scores become commonplace, they think how to make courses harder. So they grow even more long grass.

"But that misses the point. There is no real defence against a soft green. Today's players with today's wedges can stop the ball from anywhere. The angle of attack and the shape of the shot mean nothing. It doesn't matter where you hit it as long as it is between the out of bounds stakes or between the trees. And so the game becomes a one-dimensional test of execution, time after time after time."

Photo: © Phil Inglis/WireImage Michael Campbell is a devoted fan to St. Andrews.

Reading those words in the wake of his victory in the game's most one-dimensional event at a Winged Foot almost covered in long grass and dogged by poor putting surfaces, the irony will not be lost on Ogilvy. Like last year's US Open winner, Michael Campbell, he is a devoted fan of the more multi-layered questions asked by links golf. Fifth in the Open Championship at St. Andrews last year, he had ­- Road Hole apart - the time of his life playing the game's ultimate strategic test.

"St. Andrews is the best course in the world because of the shots it makes you play," he insists. "In our increasingly black and white game, the Old Course is a million shades of grey. Stand on a tee there and you have choices to make about where to hit your drive. That's a huge contrast with any course covered in rough, where any decision has already been made for you. It's ?hit it here you're good, hit it there you're f_ _ _ _ d.' Which is stupid.

"Look at the last hole. It is a masterpiece, all because of one little hollow in front of the green. You have a 150-yard wide fairway and you don't know where to hit it. One day you might want to get some spin on the approach, so you lay back a bit. Then the next day you might want to go way left, so that you can access a pin cut way to the right. On another day you might want to hit past the pin and on others that may not work - all on a dead flat hole with no rough and one little hollow. But, because the green is firm, it is one of the best holes in the world. Plus, everyone gets to hit the fairway. And everyone finds his ball.

"If the first game of golf was played on some of the courses we play today, it wouldn't be a sport. It would never have been invented. People would play one round and ask themselves why they would ever play a second. It would be no fun."

The contrast between that obvious enthusiasm and his polite but obviously bored assessment of Winged Foot halfway through the championship he would eventually win is more than marked.

"It's a different mindset you've got to set yourself," he admitted, after adding a second round 70 to his opening 71. "If you get yourself in the right mindset, anyone can do it out here when it's tough. You've just got to adjust where your brain is. You've just got to be able to read what is a good score and not a good score. This week you can be as much as four over par after nine holes and not be in bad shape. That's a big adjustment from the courses and events we normally play."

Still, he has obviously learned how to cope, as his performance down that stressful Sunday afternoon stretch revealed. Just don't run away with the idea that he was having an enjoyable time doing it.

"Look, I don't care, if people want to see us hacking out of long grass all the time, it's fine with me," he sighs. "I can go and get my fun somewhere else at another time. But the trouble is that everyone in golf follows us, the professionals. So it gets harder to find fun places to play. All of a sudden my dad is out there chopping around in six inch rough, losing his ball every time he misses the fairway and having no fun. Which makes no sense. We play a game that 99.9% of golfers have no hope of duplicating."

Finally, just in case you imagine that, in the midst of such articulate outrage, Ogilvy has been neglecting his own game, think again. This is a young man with some very definite goals in life.

"Winning the match play certainly raised my profile, especially in America," he said before Winged Foot. "As far as my career goes, that win put me back on schedule. I set myself fairly steep targets because I have enough confidence in my own ability to think that I am a decent player. I want to win majors. And I want to get to the stage where my year is built around those four events and I can play in the best tournaments around them.

"Last year I played well at St. Andrews, nicely at Pinehurst and well at Baltusrol (where he was sixth in the PGA behind Phil Mickelson). And every single year I feel like I have improved as a player. So as long as that continues, I'm happy. I'd like to think I could win an Open. But playing 20 events every year in the US only makes me better at that 60-degree flop out of the rough! As ugly as it is, you get good at it."

In the wake of Winged Foot, prophetic words indeed. Keep listening everyone.