Ogilvie Has a Bird’s-Eye View After 36 Holes

He lists Warren Buffett and Bill Gates among his heroes, so it’s obvious that Joe Ogilvie knows something about investment strategy, even as it relates this week to the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.

Maybe the best idea is to put a little something away for when you really need it, possibly some birdies, sometime Sunday afternoon.

“Unless you’re up by 13, which is almost impossible, no lead is safe here,” Ogilvie said.

So after two rounds of the five-round Hope, Ogilvie’s 64-63 (17 under par) puts him in the lead, at least numerically, by three shots over Phil Mickelson and Fredrik Jacobson. But realistically, Ogilvie doesn’t think he’s ahead of Mickelson, who shot a 64 Thursday at La Quinta Country Club.

According to Ogilvie, Mickelson’s round trumped his own nine-under at the more user-friendly Bermuda Dunes.

It’s all in the way you look at it, said Ogilvie, who has a degree in economics from Duke.

“Mickelson ... I’d say technically he’s probably leading. Score-wise, I am, but technically, I’d say he’s leading. That’s Duke math.”

Jacobson, an emerging international star from Sweden and one of the top players on Europe’s Ryder Cup team, blistered Bermuda Dunes with a 62. It was a 10-birdie, no-bogey barrage that moved him from a tie for 32nd after one round to a tie for second with Mickelson after two rounds.

“I’ll just try to give myself as many chances as possible the next few days,” Jacobson said. “It’s a long tournament week.”

Meanwhile, the birdies continued to add up. There were 587 made Thursday, which brings the 36-hole total to 1,196.

Billy Mayfair had 10 on his way to a 64 at Bermuda Dunes, but he walked away unsure whether that was going to be good enough. Scoring low is sometimes relative after all, because how low is low?

“Before you tee it up, you just think you have to keep making birdies and birdies and birdies, and hopefully you’ll have more than anyone else by the end of the week,” he said.

You also have to guard against bad bounces, which is what happened to Mayfair on the 13th hole when he hit it out of bounds, the ball hopping off a cart path and landing in someone’s condominium.

Mayfair pulled himself together and closed with four birdies in the last five holes. He’s second in putting this week (Ogilvie leads) and that has to be encouraging -- Mayfair ranked 193rd on the PGA Tour in putting last year.

Mayfair is tied with Robert Damron, Fred Couples, qualifying school graduate Jason Allred and Peter Lonard at 13-under 131. Ted Purdy, Tim Herron and 2001 winner Joe Durant are next at 12 under.

In theory, the top rounds of the day were Mickelson’s 64 and Couples’ 66 because they came at La Quinta, probably the toughest of the four courses being played this week. Mickelson shows up today at the Palmer Course at PGA West and then on Saturday tries to torch Bermuda Dunes, the easiest of the four layouts, before everyone who makes the cut comes back to the Palmer Course on Sunday.

Mickelson, who has won this thing two of the last three years, has to be considered among the front-runners, especially because he said he has solved putting problems that bothered him last week at Torrey Pines.

“Now I’m starting to feel I can really make them,” Mickelson said.

And no matter how Ogilvie feels about Mickelson’s being in the lead, not everyone believes it.

“I feel like I’m three back,” Mickelson said.

So that would make Ogilvie the leader, officially and statistically. It’s a position Ogilvie knows to be tenuous. At last year’s tournament at New Orleans he was ahead after 54 holes, shot four under in the last round, and still wound up getting passed by Vijay Singh, who finished with a 63.

Ogilvie hit 15 of 18 greens in regulation and needed only 25 putts. His 17 under ties the third-best 36-hole score in relation to par in PGA Tour history. Tom Lehman’s 19-under in 2001 at Las Vegas is the best, and Durant’s 18-under at the 2001 Hope is next. Even so, Ogilvie refused to become too impressed with himself.

“I don’t think I’m going to be in any encyclopedias of golf,” he said.

Ogilvie says all he can do is continue to make birdies, score low and try to stay somewhere in contention until Sunday. It’s also what everyone else is trying to do, of course. Just make “a ton” of birdies, he said.

“I came here thinking I’ve got to make 40 birdies to have a chance to win, which is totally crazy over five rounds. It’s eight birdies a day. That’s the mentality. The greens are perfect, the courses are perfect, the fairways are perfect, everything is perfect.”

And the math, Duke or otherwise, shows that Ogilvie has three eagles and 13 birdies, which may or not be a ton, but it’s decent. For the record, Mayfair and Lonard have 16 birdies to lead the pack, and Jacobson and Mickelson are next with 15.

Everyone else, try to keep up.

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Leaderboard

36-hole scores at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic at La Quinta, Par 72:

*--* Joe Ogilvie 64-63--127 -17 Fredrik Jacobson 68-62--130 -14 Phil Mickelson 66-64--130 -14 Billy Mayfair 67-64--131 -13 Jason Allred 66-65--131 -13 Fred Couples 65-66--131 -13 Robert Damron 64-67--131 -13 Peter Lonard 67-64--131 -13 Tim Herron 68-64--132 -12 Ted Purdy 64-68--132 -12 Joe Durant 66-66--132 -12 Others: Duffy Waldorf 64-69--133 -11 Justin Leonard 66-67--133 -11 Jim Furyk 67-70--137 -7 David Toms 69-69--138 -6 Mike Weir 71-73--144 E David Duval 82-79--161 +17

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