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The 2006 US Open will not be far from Geoff Ogilvy’s mind as he watches the action from Torrey Pines.
Phil Mickelson, Colin Montgomerie, Jim Furyk and others succumbed to Winged Foot’s brutal closing stretch, leaving Ogilvy as the last man standing after playing the last four holes in level par.
“I made a conscious decision to try to par the last four holes,” Ogilvy recalled. “Very specifically, I remember having that conversation with ‘Squirrel’ (caddie Alistair Matheson): ‘Let’s par the last four holes. This is going to be really hard – you never know what is going to happen.’ I had a moment of clarity about that. That is what I was thinking.”
The last two of those pars were freakishly good and, if you believe in such things, maybe preordained. First, he holed a treacherous 18-foot downhill chip to save par on the 17th. He then overcame a miserable break on the 18th when his tee shot landed in a divot and his second tumbled back down the front slope guarding the green. He chipped up and, unlike Montgomerie and Furyk before him, made a 6-foot putt for par.
“I thought at that moment I was putting for a play-off at best,'” said Ogilvy. “A coin toss for a play-off or to lose by a shot. But I was at peace with it. I felt good about it. I was good with second, it’s a good week. Maybe I would have thought differently if I were in the last group and thinking I had a putt to win.”
Ogilvy vividly remembers signing his scorecard, then watching Mickelson hack his way up the 72nd hole for a double-bogey 6.
When it became clear he had prevailed, Ogilvy recalls celebrating with Ian Poulter, his final-round playing companion.
“Poults was head-to-toe wearing pink,” Ogilvy recalled. “Great outfit. It was fun to be with him. He was legitimately pumped that I was going to win, as we are good friends. No jealousy at all. He was a good guy to be in the scorer’s hut with at that point.”
In winning the 106th US Open, Ogilvy became the first Aussie to win a major championship since Steve Elkington at the 1995 PGA Championship and just the second to win the US Open following David Graham in 1981.
Adam Scott, who tied for 21st at Winged Foot, had left for the airport but, as soon as he heard the news, got off a plane and headed back to join Ogilvy’s celebration party.
Charles Happell