Ogilvy earns Doral berth with Honda runner-up

• By Will Gray
• Mar 3, 2013 7:26 PM ET

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – A closing round of 1-under 69 was not enough for Geoff Ogilvy Sunday, as the Aussie ended up two strokes behind winner Michael Thompson at the Honda Classic. Ogilvy can take solace, though, in the fact that his runner-up finish was good enough to earn him a berth in next week's WGC-Cadillac Championship, an event he won in 2008.

"Yeah I just heard that. I didn't think that was possible, I thought I had to win," explained Ogilvy, who is projected to move from No. 79 to No. 47 in the world when the latest rankings are released Monday. "Wasn't any fun missing the Match Play and it wouldn't have been any fun missing next week, both are tournaments that I've played well in before."

Playing for the second straight day in blustery conditions, Ogilvy was one of many players that spoke of the difficulty of PGA National's Champion Course during the final two rounds of the tournament.

"This is a tough golf course. You don't have to do much wrong to be making a bogey out there," he noted. "It's a very hard golf course and it seems to get progressively harder ... there's a disaster waiting everywhere."

While this week's result earns Ogilvy a spot in the season's second WGC event, he still has yet to secure a berth in the season's first major – a fact that remained on the mind of the 2006 U.S. Open champion just after his round concluded Sunday.

"It gets me back in the mix for The Masters, because I'm not in the Masters yet," explained Ogilvy, who will need to either win an event before Augusta or remain in the top 50 in the world rankings until the week prior in order to qualify. "I would have loved to have won here and sealed that, but at least I've gone in the right direction."