Golf-Ogilvy leads charge to stop Scott three-peat at Masters

MELBOURNE, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Geoff Ogilvy has warned compatriot Adam Scott that he is one of "tons" of players in the field who have the ability to prevent the world number two from winning a third straight Australian Masters title this week. Scott will be the clear favourite to become the first golfer to win the A$1 million (872,000 US dollar) tournament three years in a row when he tees off at the Metropolitan Golf Club on Thursday. Former U.S. Open champion Ogilvy won his first U.S. PGA tour title in four years at the Barracuda Championship in August, though, and believes his local knowledge could just help him add a first yellow jacket to his wardrobe. "Obviously I feel like I can win the tournament," he told a news conference on Tuesday. "Melbourne is home and I feel like if I play well on this sort of course, I should do well. "Adam's the favourite but I feel like I can win and I feel like there's probably a ton of other guys in the field that if they go out and play well, they can win. "There's a lot of pretty established and proven players in this field that if they play well, they are hard to beat, as well." Other players favoured to challenge for the title at the PGA Tour of Australasia event are American Boo Weekley and local challengers Marcus Fraser, Steven Bowditch and Stuart Appleby, who shot a final-round 65 to win the title in 2010. Jarrod Lyle might not feature among the favourites with the bookmakers but would love nothing better than a win in his own country. The 33-year-old made an emotional return to competition at the tournament last year after successfully battling leukaemia for the second time. Accepting that his battle with cancer will probably always be the defining narrative of his career, Lyle said he would still like to make headlines for other reasons. "I'm here to compete," Lyle told reporters. "I'm never going to lose that tag, but I now am a golfer again. I want to be out playing golf. "I want to be competitive. I want to win golf tournaments." (1 US dollar = 1.1468 Australian dollar) (Writing by Nick Mulvenney in Sydney, editing by Amlan Chakraborty)