Capelle On Golf

On a day when the Muirfield Village course was resistant to scoring, Geoff Ogilvy went deep with a 63, besting a quartet of golfers who fired 68s.

For the record, of the 77 players who teed it up Saturday, only nine broke 70 including:
63 – Geoff Ogilvy
68 – Tiger Woods, Robert Allenby, Jose Maria Olazabal, Matt Bettencourt
69 – D.J. Trahan, Davis Love III, Michael Letzig, Mark Wilson

Ordinarily you could say that Ogilvy, who started the day tied for 57th, benefitted from playing an easier course as the early starters usually do. But not this time as only one of the 28 players who started the day within a shot of him (Trahan) broke 70.

Furthermore, the gap of five shots between him and the next best scores points to an exceptional round of golf. So how did he do it?

Ogilvy hit 15 greens in regulation on his way to carding nine birdies. Seven of his red numbers came on putts inside six feet. Another came on the fourth when he knocked his second shot out of the water to within 19 feet, then rolled in the putt. But Ogilvy’s most spectacular effort was on the 18th when he holed a 12 yard bunker shot for a birdie.

For the week, the normally fairway challenged Ogilvy (he’s 155th on tour in driving accuracy) is hitting 78.6 (23t) of the fairways, enabling him to take advantage of his superlative iron game. So is the normally wild Woods (145th on tour in accuracy), who is hitting 83.3% (8t). Evidently both are feeling quite comfortable on the expansive fairways of Muirfield Village, where 72% of the field’s tee shots are finding the short grass, well above the norm of about 62%.

Sunday’s final round should be a treat because the Jack Nicklaus designed Muirfield Village is one of the most scenic course the pros play, and because Jim Furyk (-8), Ogilvy (-7), and Love (-7) along with Woods (-5) and Ernie Els (-5) are waiting in the wings should co-leaders Bettencourt and Wilson (-9) should falter.

It is tough to back up a scorching hot round with another, but Ogilvy has shown this year that when he gets hot, tends to stay hot. He won the Mercedes-Benz Championship by six shots and he captured the WGC Accenture Match Play with commanding 4&3 win over the red hot Paul Casey.

So, should Ogilvy score his third win of the season, his case for Player of the Year would strengthen considerably as the Memorial is considered one of the seven or eight best events of the year. He would also jump over Sergio Garcia and his good pal Casey into the third position in the World Golf Rankings.