Ramsay’s ready to have a pop at the big time
RICHIE RAMSAY does not have time to think about the possibility of his own Open fairy tale. The Scotsman is too busy reading his daughter Olivia hers.
The 34-year-old from Aberdeen shot a level-par 70 to become one of the first players on the leaderboard back in the clubhouse on two under.
In the past, that would have given him the chance to stew ahead of going out among the last pairings today. But these days his 16-month-old daughter will not allow him that sort of spare time.
“I’ll watch a bit of the golf in the afternoon,” he said after his round. “But Olivia will probably want me to read some books this afternoon as well, so I’ll be doing that.
“Having a daughter has probably calmed me down a bit. I definitely don’t take things for granted as much. I’m a little bit more patient.
“Olivia teaches me a lot. It settles you down as a person. It takes your mind off playing golf.
“When I was younger, I definitely thought too much. I was very one-dimensional. If golf wasn’t going well, things weren’t going well. Now I try to set golf aside.”
Not that he has a choice. Last Sunday he ruined a promising start to the Scottish Open by missing three four-foot putts on his way to finishing in a tie for 35th.
“Last week I had a bit of a bad finish and I walked into the players’ lounge and Olivia caught me from about 20 yards away,” he recalled.
“Her hands went up and she had a smile on her face, and that just cheers you up. It’s brilliant. When she smiles, I smile. It’s a great feeling having her here this week and giving a huge perspective.”
Ramsay won the US Amateur championship as a 22-year-old in 2006 – the first British player to do so since 1911. But after turning professional, he has struggled to kick-start his career, with only three wins to his name in eight years.
He has missed the cut in four of his previous six Opens, but it was being forced to take the weekend off at Royal Lytham and St Annes in 2012 that proved the wake-up call.
“That was a long drive,” Ramsay recalled. “I remember that. I’m notorious for falling asleep everywhere, but I drove from Lytham back to Edinburgh for four hours, and never stopped to sleep. That was because it was a mixture of being upset and frustrated.”
The feeling this weekend will be more akin to the kinds of story he himself used to dream up as a kid.
Indeed, the vernacular turns very much to that of an excited schoolboy when the magnitude of his current situation is presented to him.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” said Ramsay. “You grow up and you imagine you’ve got a 10-foot putt on the green to win the Open. Fortunately now I’m in a position to compete for it, which is something I probably haven’t done over the last few years.”
However, it is just a brief exuberant moment before the responsible dad in him once more takes the reins and points out he is only halfway there.
“I’ve ticked one of those boxes; to mix with the top guys in the world over two days in a major championship,” he said.
“And that’s something that I’m just proud of. It’s not easy to do. It’s taken years to work out. I just need to continue what I’ve done over the last two days and it would be great to be in a position of just being in contention on Sunday.”
But if he wants to go the extra mile and make it down that 72nd fairway tomorrow while still in contention, he needs a different mindset. Ramsay is honest about his limitations. The world No169, who qualified by finishing joint second in the Irish Open and has never yet made it into the top 50 in the world, knows he has to knuckle down.
“It’s happened to me before,” he admitted. “I’ve gone off-kilter when I’ve gotten into contention, and I just need to stick to my game plan.
“My mission statement is to be the best I can be. I did that on Thursday and I did that today very well. I’ll try to do that again this weekend and give a hundred per cent. What will be? You never know. But we will try to believe and be as confident as possible.”