Taking Aim

If the stats tell us anything, it’s that there’s nothing glaringly wrong.

Professional golfers are always moaning about some part of their game – not holing enough putts, not doing this, not doing that. I actually haven’t been moaning at all, I’ve actually been pretty happy with how it’s all going but I just haven't had the scores. I guess that’s just one of the cycles you go through in professional golf.

I made more money than I spent last year, and as a professional golfer, that’s kind of the point of the exercise in one way. So I was obviously doing it better than a lot of other guys but maybe not quite as well as I have done [in the past].

You played 20 events in 2012 and the only time you played less [19] was in an injury marred 2010. Does playing more holes also mean playing more on Tour?

I probably do need to play more rounds of golf. I started having kids six years ago, just after I won the US Open – [Ogilvy's wife] Juli was pregnant at Winged Foot. After that, I probably started slightly adjusting my practice.

Before, I used to go to the club, have breakfast, practice, play a round when a game turned up, practice a bit afterwards and then go home. That was my day, like a normal 9-5 job, that’s what I did.

As soon as you start having kids, you try to manage your time and do the father thing. So now I’ve got three or four hours in the day. I’ll go up to the course and hit balls and have my putts but I guess I didn’t appreciate the value of spending time around good golfers like we have at Whisper Rock and playing lots of holes. To me that’s more important than anything on the range. It’s a subtle shift and gradually, as you get more stuff going on at home, I think I probably went to the range or the putting green before I went for a round of golf because I felt I could get more done in a shorter period of time.

Playing more rounds of golf, playing little money games with the Whisper Rock crowd, where there’s so many professionals to play games with. If I’ve got two hours now, I’ll go play nine holes as opposed to spending that time on the range.