Ogilvy getting his due

MARANA, Ariz. (AP) — Even when the desert sun pushed temperatures into the 90s, Geoff Ogilvy was as cool as can be.

It wasn’t always that way.

When he wasn’t getting the results he expected his first four years on the PGA Tour, no one was as critical of his game than Ogilvy. It wasn’t so much anger — few players get more angry than Tiger Woods — as the inability to keep his emotions from dragging him down.

That’s what stood out during his victory in the Accenture Match Play Championship.

Ogilvy never flinched, even when he was on the verge of losing in the second round. Whether he was trying to retrieve his ball from a cholla cactus or watching his tee shot on the 343-yard 15th hole stop 4 feet from the cup, he looked the same.

“I think she changed him,” said his wife, Juli, from the patio outside the Dove Mountain clubhouse as Ogilvy mowed down two opponents on Saturday to reach the championship match for the third time in four years.

She was referring to Phoebe, their 2-year-old daughter, who lifted her head from a bowl of vanilla ice cream that covered her face. Kicking his feet from a high chair next to her was Jasper, who just turned 1.

Judy Rankin noticed the same thing.

The Hall of Famer and broadcaster is related to Ogilvy through marriage — her son’s wife and Ogilvy’s wife are sisters. They have spent Christmas dinner together in Lubbock, Texas, and they all went to a bowl game in Arizona three years ago when Texas Tech rallied to beat Minnesota.

“He’s very committed to his family, more than just his wife and the kids,” Rankin said. “He’s able to work things out on his terms. He seems to be happy in this role he has grown into. And I think that’s what you see on the golf course. He’s a very laid-back guy, the most comfortable person to be with.”

Indeed, Ogilvy is comfortable in just about any situation.

A month before he won the 2006 U.S. Open, he was invited to a black-tie dinner at the White House and wound up at a table with former President George W. Bush and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. At Kapalua this year, he looked equally content in blue jeans and flip-flops during a night out with his wife, Adam Scott and actress Kate Hudson.

Few players are more articulate, whether it’s discussing history or golf course design. Ogilvy has always been that way.

The trick was learning to like himself on the golf course.

“There was no real moment of clarity or epiphany or whatever,” Ogilvy said.

“You want to say it was a very gradual process from being generally not very nice to myself on the golf course to being quite nice to myself on the golf course. Being negative on a golf course is a habit. You hit a shot and complain about it, and that’s just the way you play golf.”