Golf story by Gareth Bowman, Tue, 28 Feb 2006 11:32:01 GMT


28-year-old Geoff Ogilvy of Australia defeated Davis Love III 3 and 2 in the 36-hole final at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship on Sunday. And there was further good news for the affable Australian on Monday as he climbed to the 26th place in the world rankings list.

"Unbelievable," Ogilvy said after what has been a monumental week for him. "It's such a hard tournament to believe you're going to keep going. I got lucky the first four days, and the last two games I played very well." On the way to his first World title and only the second by an Australian, Ogilvy played a record-breaking 129 holes for the week. In the process, he broke the record held by Jeff Maggert by one hole. Ogilvy also revealed his ultimate dream, to win the US Masters this coming April, "I've never even been to Augusta, so I can't tell you how pumped I am to be playing there this year," Ogilvy said. "It's been a dream for me, like it is for everybody who plays golf. All those years of waking up to watch Greg (Norman) as a kid.

Hopefully, one of us can do it and win one of those." But he admitted that he was not always this confident, "If you talked to anybody else like I talked to me, you wouldn't be friends with them. I'm still not the best out here but I'm getting a lot better. I'm probably five out of 10 and I was a two, so I've got a long way to go." But his opponent of the day, Davis Love III, who missed a great chance to annex the title, said that Ogilvy was composed throughout. "What a beautiful shot he hit on 11," Love commented. "I'm standing with a five-iron thinking of hitting it close and he hits it stiff. And now I'm grinding to hit it close rather than just trying to hit a good shot. That's where you win matches, with shots like that."

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