Ogilvy into Accenture Matchplay Final
US PGA Tour | 2009 Accenture Match Play Championship | Semi-Finals | 01 Mar 2009
2008 Australian PGA Championship winner Geoff Ogilvy moved into his third WGC-Accenture Match Play final in four years with victory over Stewart Cink as Paul Casey edged past Ross Fisher to become the first English finalist of the event.
Winner of the event in 2006 and runner up in 2007, Ogilvy won 4&2 over the American Cink, last year’s losing finalist, at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club.
In the all-English semi-final, Casey scored a 2&1 win over Fisher to reach the 36-hole final, which takes place tomorrow.
Only one Englishman had previously reached the last four of this event, with Ian Poulter appearing in the semis in 2005.
Cink had earlier in the day defeated Ernie Els 2&1 in the quarter-finals while Ogilvy had ended the run of 19-year-old Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy with a 2&1 win.
Ogilvy took a one-up lead into the par-five 11th but he found the lip of a fairway bunker off the tee and then missed a par putt from 14 feet.
There was woe for both players at the par-three 12th. Both men found greenside bunkers, Cink overclubbing and Ogilvy underclubbing from the elevated tee box 194 yards out.
Cink’s recovery out of the trap was sublime, to inside a foot from the hole, while Ogilvy left himself nine feet, with both men holing out to leave the match finely poised with six to play.
Ogilvy, though, turned his game up a notch to take the match by winning the next four holes, scoring birdie, birdie, eagle, birdie to go through to his third final in four years.
“When you make birdies like that at the end it’s a nice way to finish,” Ogilvy said.
The tournament had moved higher into the foothills of the Tortolita mountains from The Gallery Club, its home of the previous two years, and Ogilvy had with Casey travelled from their Whisper Rock golf club in Scottsdale, Arizona, to play a practice round two weeks prior to the tournament in order to familiarise themselves with the new course.
It certainly paid dividends for both men and Ogilvy looked forward to a final between friends.
“It will be fun,” he said. “We both came down a couple of weeks ago to check out the golf course and if we both ended up in the final that’s very coincidental.”
“I’m sure the Whisper Rock members will be down in force.”
Source – PGA Tour
