At his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, Geoff Ogilvy likes to wallow in the past. As well as flicking through biographies of iconic figures such as Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie, he reads books on course architecture and watches grainy videos from the television series, Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf. His favourite is the 1965 match in Houston when Ben Hogan hit all 18 greens to beat Sam Snead by three shots. “That’s the coolest one to have,” he says. “Anyone who is into that sort of stuff needs to watch that one.”

This is not the kind of conversation you expect to be having with a 29-year-old guitar-playing Australian who used to have such a temper on the fairways that he was given a suspended ban by the Victorian Golf Association. This, though, is a man who cares not just about his game, which last year won him the US Open, but about the game, which provokes in him a range of the most informed and honest opinions you are likely to find in professional golf.

For a big-hitting, thoroughly modern player, Ogilvy is something of a purist, who came on a kind of pilgrimage to Britain’s best courses in 1993, and ended up watching Greg Norman’s triumph at Royal St George’s. A distant relative of Robert the Bruce, he has a British passport, loves links golf, and cut his tournament teeth during two years on the European Tour.

Hence, the major he would like to win next is The Open. The Masters, with its emphasis on tradition, comes a close second. After finishing tied 16th there last year, he cannot wait to return next month. Not only does it suit his playing style, he says it is the “coolest” of the game’s big events, thanks to the strict discipline and exclusivity some find offensive.

“You hear all sorts of stories, like players having their guest badges withdrawn, but they’re not going to complain. They want to be invited back. Some people don’t like the way it is run, but that’s kind of why it’s cool. You can barely get in the gate unless you are playing. It wouldn’t be what it is without that mystique, and that attitude they have. They’re not silly. They cultivate it. The Masters has been very public about being private.”

Given what he knows about Jones and MacKenzie, founder and designer of Augusta respectively, Ogilvy is fascinated by the club’s attempts to recreate the past. He likes the lack of advertising, the chairs around the 18th green, and the period detail of the clubhouse, but he draws the line at their changes to the course, which last year included new trees, rough and an additional 155 yards. The aim was to recapture the shot values of days gone by, but Ogilvy believes a more important principle has been forgotten. “I’m not against the course being lengthened, but the fairways were never meant to be narrow. The point was that you had a paddock to hit into, but you had to make a decision as to what side of the fairway was good. Now you don’t have a choice.” Ogilvy regrets that technology has drastically changed many of the world’s great courses, rendered some of them redundant, and diminished the game’s entertainment value. By responding to Tiger Woods’s every achievement with more rough and more yards, they have made the spectacle more boring.

“You don’t need an array of shots any more, and that’s not good for spectators. Who wants to watch us drive into the rough, chip out to 80 yards, and try to get up and down? There is no excitement in that, no imagination or strategy. One day, somebody will realise that the score relative to par does not reflect the quality of a golf tournament.”

For that reason, and others, Ogilvy dares to suggest Woods hasn’t been entirely good for the game. “The positives outweigh the negatives, but there is a downside to having a player who is so much bigger and more marketable than everybody else,” says the Australian. “Apart from the effect he has had on courses, his schedule can drag things down. If he is at a tournament, that tournament is massive. If he isn’t, it’s almost like it doesn’t have any credibility. An event that used to be decent is now no good because Tiger doesn’t play in it, which isn’t fair.”

By now, Ogilvy is getting everything off his chest, suggesting a think tank of the 100 smartest minds in golf to address the game's problems. “It is in everybody’s interests because it appears, in America anyway, that fewer and fewer people are playing the game. In the old days, you went out in a Saturday threeball, and in under three hours, you would be back in the clubhouse having a beer. Now, it costs you £150 and it takes five hours. At some courses, you’re driving a cart, so you don’t talk to anyone, and you’ve lost eight balls in the rough. Somewhere it has all gone wrong.”

While Ogilvy is frustrated by the changing complexion of golf, it hasn’t stopped him enjoying his growth into one of the game’s biggest talents. He has long argued that international players need have no inferiority complex on the PGA Tour, and as the collective strength of Europe, Australia, South Africa and Asia becomes ever more apparent in the biggest events, the world No 8 hopes it will dispel once and for all the myth that Americans are better. Ogilvy knew as much when he began playing in the United States six years ago. “Before you arrive, you think everybody here is a legend. You’ve read about them in the press, and think you shouldn’t be going there. But it’s just the way the game is promoted. When you get here, you realise they’re no better than us.”

Golf in the US has no depth, as the Ryder Cup has demonstrated. While the world’s top three are American, none of them is under 30, and there is no sign of the next generation, never mind the next Woods. “All of a sudden, there is respect for international players,” says Ogilvy.

There ought to be more, however. Henrik Stenson, the Swede who last month denied Ogilvy a successful defence of his WGC-Accenture Match Play title, is still having to justify his rise to fifth in the world. “It’s incredible,” says the Australian. “Henrik plays well, and they all start questioning the validity of the world ranking system, but he has won four times in the past year. In the Match Play, they were talking as though this guy had never played golf before, and yet he had beaten Tiger in Dubai two weeks earlier. Some people here have a hard time looking past the borders of their own country.”

Ogilvy could do with another big win to cement his reputation. His US Open triumph would not have been possible without the dramatic collapse of Phil Mickelson, Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington. “Another major would make the first one more credible, but I’m not in this to influence what people think of me,” he says. “I just like doing it. Standing on the 18th tee at Winged Foot was the most fun I have ever had in my life. We don’t know how lucky we are.”