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Australia’s highest-ranked golfer Geoff Ogilvy believes he or another of the country’s best players can beat Tiger Woods in this week’s Masters at Kingston Heath.
Ogilvy said it was possible to beat the world No.1, although he expected Woods to be at his best given his love for Melbourne’s famous sandbelt course.
“It would be nice to beat him,” Ogilvy said on Tuesday.
“It’s do-able, absolutely. He doesn’t win every week, he didn’t win last week (in Shanghai), it would be nice.
“I would just like to win just to win the Australian Masters and it would be pretty exciting to beat Tiger.
“But there’s plenty of other Australians who are pretty ready to line up against him.
“He’s going to play well, he very rarely plays poorly, so he’s going to be in contention.
“He loves our golf courses and I know he’s going to love Kingston Heath and he always plays quite well on a golf course if he really likes it.”
Regardless of who wins the tournament, Ogilvy said Woods’ presence in Australia would provide an enormous kick-along for golf in this country.
“For sure. There will be plenty of people there this week who haven’t been to golf tournaments before,” he said.
“They might go away and say ‘Well, Tiger’s not coming back so I’m only going to see it if he plays’.
“But I think there’s going to be an effect that people will realise it’s an enjoyable thing to do, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll get the clubs out of the closet and play more golf’, and get the corporate world more fired up about golf.
“If it’s more on the back page of the paper as opposed to being buried four or five pages back more people will see it and it will get more exposure and that can only help our tour and our players and our golf courses.
“The knock-on effect is immeasurable.”
Ogilvy, Adam Scott and Stuart Appleby played at a charity golf day in Marysville on Tuesday, and witnessed first-hand some of the devastation caused by February’s bushfires in the area.