Geoff Ogilvy: If golf was starting now, Australia would have a major

Matt Chivers

In December 2024, 2006 US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy spoke to NCG about the quality of golf courses in his home country, as well as a tournament he created during the pandemic which helped the development of Aussie golfers

If the golf purist had their way, there’d be a fifth major in the men’s game, and it would be in Australia.

We know complexities such as time zones and television make this idea a pipe dream. Nonetheless, it is a shame that the immense quality of Australian golf can’t be seen on a more regular basis, given that some of them place very high in world course ranking lists.

Geoff Ogilvy has a major trophy for keeps. He also won the Australian Open in 2010 and etched his name into a ‘Who’s Who’ of the sport down under: Devlin, Von Nida, Thomson, Graham, Norman, Elkington, Scott and him.

The 2006 US Open champion once speculated that if golf started again tomorrow, Australia could host a major tournament and believes the national Open should be at the top of elite players’ bucket lists.

“The golf landscape just evolved that way, and I really like that aspect of the game. I think if you were starting again, you might consider having a major in Australia, a bit like tennis, but you can’t invent these things, they just evolve,” Ogilvy said to NCG.

“The Australian Open is one of the oldest tournaments in the world, and probably should be higher up the list of tournaments that players really want to win. But the majors have been majors for a really long time.

“The best golfers in the world have had them on their ‘most want to win’ lists for close to a century or more. You can’t create that. It just evolves.”

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‘The Sandbelt Invitational is a pretty cool event’

Ogilvy won arguably the most dramatic US Open ever at Winged Foot. He crucially parred the final four holes to finish on five-over-par. Phil Mickelson and Colin Montgomerie double-bogeyed the 72nd hole excruciatingly when both had the tournament at their mercy.

In the 18th fairway, Ogilvy met his ball in a sand-filled divot. He missed the green but chipped up and nervelessly made a six-footer which eventually became the winning stroke. Such circumstances that led to victory required grit under boiling pressure which he learned when thriving under match play conditions at Victoria Golf Club during his upbringing.

Ogilvy no doubt hopes many more Aussie golfers can follow in his footsteps in the coming years. He has certainly done his best to develop new stars by hosting the Sandbelt Invitational, an initiative he and course architect Mike Clayton created during the COVID-19 pandemic, a global health crisis that cancelled the Australian Open in 2020 and 2021.

The event has been discontinued for the time being. Nonetheless, Ogilvy described how it all came about:

“The Sandbelt Invitational is a pretty cool event. We play on four of the best courses in Melbourne and pair young golfers, both men and women, with tour players. The idea came out of the pandemic when there was a couple of years without much to play in for the Australian golfers.

“We were sitting around after the Australian Open had been cancelled due to all of the issues that came along with COVID and we just threw ideas around and wondered if there was anything we could scrape together that would be something for the locals to play in. So we called a few clubs and went from there.

“We were trying to put this together in a couple of months, and Melbourne golfers had missed a lot of golf through the pandemic, so we didn’t feel comfortable asking for a whole week at a course, so we thought one round at the four best courses we could find was a great way to put together a four-round tournament with the least amount of disruption to the members of the clubs we were visiting. So, through circumstances, we ended up with a pretty cool tournament.”

PGA Tour winner and Presidents Cup player Cam Davis won the event in 2022 and familiar faces of the Aussie golf scene such as Peter Fowler, Lucas Herbert, Elvis Smylie, and David Micheluzzi have also competed. DP World Tour stalwart and former Ryder Cup player Nicolas Colsaerts played in 2023.

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About the author

Matt Chivers

Matt has been playing golf since the age of 13 and was largely inspired to take up the game by countless family members who played golf during his childhood.

Matt is a member at Royal Cinque Ports in Deal playing off a 5 handicap, just a pitching wedge away from his hometown of Dover where he went to school and grew up. He has previously been a member at Etchinghill and Walmer and Kingsdown in Kent.

Having studied history at the University of Liverpool, Matt went on to pass his NCTJ Exams in Manchester a year later to fulfil his lifelong ambition of becoming a journalist. He picked up work experience along the way at places such as the Racing Post, the Independent, Sportsbeat and the Lancashire Evening Post.

Matt joined NCG in February 2023 and is the website’s main source of tour news, features and opinion. He has reported live from events such as the Masters, The Open, the Ryder Cup and The Players Championship, having also interviewed and spoken to many of the biggest names in the sport.

Consuming tour golf on what is a 24/7 basis, you can come to Matt for informed views on the game and the latest updates on the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LPGA Tour, Ladies European Tour and LIV Golf.

What’s in Matt’s bag: Cleveland HiBore XL Driver driver, Cobra LTDx 3-wood, Benross BR-Pro irons, Ping Glide 4.0 wedges, Odyssey putter.

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