Highlights From Geoff Ogilvy's Golf Digest My Shot

There's much to enjoy in the December 2014 Golf Digest, including the Johnny Manziel interview and Dan Jenkins finally getting his sit-down with Tiger (well...), but the icing comes in Geoff Ogilvy's as-told-to-Guy Yocom My Shot.

It's three online pages and a must read (I know you'll all cherish it in print as I did), but just in case or if you want to send this anonymously to your favorite sub-species of golf snob.

But before those, his thoughts on how he won at Winged Foot:

IT'S OBVIOUS that narrow driving zones, extreme length and dense grass don't suit me. I dislike them. So how did I win the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot on one of the most penal setups in golf? Well, nobody hit a lot of fairways. On a course that is supposed to reward pure ball-striking and tremendous driving accuracy, the opposite happened, more or less. I wound up lumped in with everyone else. The penal setups are how Phil Mickelson, far from a precision player, has finished runner-up six times. In 2006, it came down to who was best from 100 yards and in. For that week, it was me.

Loved this on short par-3s.

FROM THE BEGINNER TO RORY MCILROY, everyone loves super-short par 3s. Everyone loves the 106-yard seventh hole at Pebble Beach, or the par-3 Postage Stamp at Troon in Scotland. They're considered genius architecture. The question is, why aren't there more of them?

Ah because to get to 7,000 yards, or now, to 7,500 something has to give!

SPEAKING OF GOLF SNOBS, I've identified four sub-species so far. The first is The Membership Collector. He belongs to several clubs, all of them expensive, exclusive and always on the tip of his tongue. The second is The Traditionalist. He raves about 6,000-yard seaside courses (preferably in Scotland), plays them with wooden woods and insists golf was better before they invented the bunker rake. Then there's Mr. Big & New. Buys a new driver every six months, has 40 Scotty Cameron putters, drives brand-new cars to courses that are 7,500 yards. Loves huge clubhouses with wine cellars. Then there's The History Guy. That's me. Always talking about old players, old courses, the history of majors and so on. Knows not only about architects, but when and where they were born.

And let's not forget our favorite golf snob of all...

It's The Harder Is Better guy. The club member who comes up to me at a tour event and says, "Bet you guys thought it would be easy, eh? Nice to see it beat you up the way it beats us up." Oakmont members are like that. The faster, more impossible they can get the greens, the better they like it. Nice people, but I don't understand the mind-set.