Who is Geoff Ogilvy? Let's Ask an Aussie ...

In the wake of his second consecutive win at the season-opening SBS (nee Mercedes) Championship, Geoff Ogilvy is once again being hailed as a golfer to watch. In 2009, he won twice early on, adding an impressive conquest at the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship to his Mercedes victory. But after that ... we didn't hear a whole lot from him.

     So who is the real Geoff Ogilvy? Is he a true up-and-comer on the verge of greatness or just another golfer who gets hot here and there, now and then? And what's he like away from the course? Is he a good guy? He strikes me as the kind of golfer I could really get behind, but before jumping on the Ogilvy bandwagon, I want to know more. And it feels like there's a lot we Americans don't know about the lanky lunker from Down Under.
     His official PGA Tour profile tells us this much:

Was given a cut-down club by his dad at age 7 [good idea, Dad!] and progressed to a scratch handicap by age 16...Talented junior athlete in many sports, winning numerous athletics medals at state and national level...Interested in history of golf [excellent!]...Avid guitar enthusiast who has several Gibson guitars at home [good, good]...Ogilvy Family Foundation benefits children's hospitals and other organizations that assist children [wonderful].

All good stuff. But there must be more! So to dig a little deeper I went to Australia – in a "magic of the internet" kind of way – and asked former touring pro, current wine aficionado and writer for the Australian Golf Digest Grant Dodd to share a few insights from Ogilvy's native land (a Whiffling Straits exclusive!) ...

Welcome, Grant, to Whiffling Straits, where beer does flow and men might well be inclined to chunder now and then if someone would just show them how. For starters, how well do you know Geoff Ogilvy?

I know Geoff, but not well enough to say that I have any intimate knowledge of his personality or what makes him tick. He's a guy who is well liked and respected amongst his peers, gregarious in nature but an individualist at the same time. It is well chronicled that he had a fiery streak when he first came on tour. That is still there, but he controls it much better these days, and channels that energy in more productive ways.

After winning again in Hawaii, he's being talked about as someone who could rise to fill the vacuum left by Tiger's (temporary?) absence. Do you feel he has what it takes to become one of the top two or three players in the world?

No doubt whatsoever he's top 3 in the world material. I think it comes down to a simple equation of whether something like that is important enough to him that he decides to go out and chase it. The big question these days is where does the hunger come from for the top players once they have made more money than they ever imagined was possible – what drives them forward to greater achievement? Are they happy to bank the $3 mill+ every year and spend some more time with the family, or do they want to put in the extra work to try to climb those taller peaks? [Note: Ogilvy is a family man; his wife is weeks away from giving birth to their third child.]

I think for Geoff winning majors is likely to be a bigger motivator, and I expect to see him increasingly building his schedule around peaking for the four big events rather than worrying about money list position or world ranking points. At the end of the day, greatness in golf is judged purely against the number of majors that an individual has won, and I suspect that is where Geoff's priorities will lie over the next decade or so.

What do Australians know about Geoff Ogilvy that Americans generally don't -- but should?

I think mainstream Australia knows very little about Geoff; he's a quiet achiever, whereas our last marquee player (Norman) was larger than life, a truly iconic figure and instantly recognisable by golfing and non-golfing Australians alike. A Norman-like character only comes along once every hundred years or so. For a country so small in population he is a hard act to follow, and unfortunately everyone who has stepped into the breach since has had to suffer that comparison.

In time, Geoff will become better known here, but more likely purely within the golfing and corporate community than across the multiple demographics that Norman appealed to. He's a deep thinker about the game, a guy who understands its history and who is also passionate about golf architecture. He's unlikely to be a controversialist and to cross over into tabloid fodder territory. When he does speak he tends to be thoughtful, bordering on intellectual, and on the course he's not demonstrative or prone to emotive, fist pumping antics. In short, not the type to draw attention to himself, notwithstanding the short fuse that smoulders beneath that composed exterior.

How do Australians feel about him? That is, have they embraced him as the next great Australian golfer? As a good guy? Is he beloved?

As above really. Australian golf fans like him, no question, but at the moment he sits in a group with Allenby, Appleby and Scott as the most famous Australian golfer of the current era. He could walk down the street in most major cities and go largely unrecognised, a fact that I suspect he quite enjoys. I don't think people have quite worked out yet how to categorise him.

Finally (putting on my Barbara Walters cap), if Geoff Ogilvy were a wine, what kind of wine would he be -- and why?

Geoff does like a good glass of wine. I'm hoping that he has spent a decent proportion of that $25 million in career earnings on filling a good cellar. As for a wine, well, probably a first growth Bordeaux. Blue chip. Not ostentatious but will age gracefully. Long future – best years ahead.

Thank you, Grant, for your time and insight! As a token of our gratitude here at the Straits, please enjoy this complimentary Door County, Wisconsin sunset:

Grant Dodd played professional golf on the Australasia, Europe, and Asia tours, winning the Slovenian Open on the European Challenge Tour in 1999. He is also a writer for Australian Golf Digest, a golf commentator for Australian television, and a passionate wine enthusiast. To learn more about him, please visit the Grant Dodd blog, or click here to see a collection of his golf writings.

Satellite photo of Australia: NASA, via Wikimedia Commons.
Sunset photo: Mike Zimmerman