Ogilvy ends Aussie golf's major drought

Geoff Ogilvy knew Australia's 11-year drought in major golf championships was due to end, he just didn't think he'd be the one to end it.

Although he won the star-studded WGC World Match Play title in February, his second career victory, he didn't really think he had the game to win the US Open, a tournament famous for punishing inaccuracy off the tee.

And Ogilvy certainly didn't think Phil Mickelson and Colin Montgomerie would both double-bogey the 18th hole at Winged Foot on Sunday.

But there he was this morning (AEST), the US Open champion with a five-over score of 285.

"It's kind of bizarre," the 29-year-old from Adelaide said after he became just the second Australian, after David Graham in 1981, to win the US Open. His was the first win at a major for Australia since Steve Elkington won the 1995 PGA Championship.

But Ogilvy found a kind of poetic justice in claiming his victory at Winged Foot, where Greg Norman lost in a playoff to Fuzzy Zoeller in 1984, Zoeller waving a towel at the Australian in mock defeat before battling back to win.

"That was one of the first golf tapes that I kept watching again, because I was only about seven or eight," Ogilvie said. "He made some ridiculous pars the last few holes, even more ridiculous than mine."

This year's tournament will certainly be remembered for the meltdowns of Mickelson and Montgomerie.

But in the end it was Ogilvy who did what has to be done to win the US Open, he kept his poise and made pars.

Ogilvy birdied the fifth and sixth holes to take the lead, but never made another birdie the rest of the day.

His fourth bogey of the day at 14 saw him fall behind, but he parred the last four holes.

"He stayed pretty composed throughout the day," Ogilvy's caddie Alistair "Squirrel" Matheson said of the player who was Australia's rookie of the year in 1999, but didn't win his first US tour event until last year. "He never gave up and that was the reward."

At 17, Ogilvy hit his drive to the left, and his second shot left him "still in the long stuff 100 yards from the green," Ogilvy said.

His next was hung up in the greenside rough, and he chipped it in for the par.

He made another tough up and down at 18.

"I thought I had hit my career shot there, but it caught a soft bounce and came all the way back down the hill," Ogilvy said.

He pitched up and made a six-footer for par.

"I was pretty nervy over it," he admitted. "It was a pretty big putt."