Late call means the Scot tees up with a plan to enjoy the experience

There will be 156 golfers competing in the Open Championship.

And all 156 of them will know that when standing over a six-footer a healthy mind is as important as a healthy putting stroke.

For all the talk of a positive mental attitude, an out- of- bounds or a duck-hooked drive will test the instructions of the best sport psychologists, and the negative mental attitude often wins out.

Richie Ramsay, well-known as one of golf’s deepest thinkers, is determined that won’t happen to him at St Andrews this week.

And the Scot has got more reason than most to practice what they all preach, and ask himself ‘well, what’s the worst that can happen?’

Because, as third reserve for the Open just a few weeks ago, the worst that could have happened to him would have been not teeing it up on Thursday at all.

After learning on social media on Sunday night that Tim Clark’s visa problems had opened the Old Course door for him, Ramsay is determined to cast off the shackles.

He said: “In a way it’s harder to get in like this, because you don’t know if it’s going to happen.

“But when you do get in, it’s probably easier. It can be like ‘I’m just happy to be in it’.

“If your mate phoned you up and said ‘we’re going to play Augusta in four weeks’, you’d be thinking about it all the time.

“But if he phoned you up a couple of days before and said ‘get on a flight, we’re going to play Augusta’, you’d just enjoy it. You wouldn’t build it up and think about it so much.

“I’m not going to expectations on myself.

“I’m going to play as if I would with my mates and take the attitude that I’m going to try and make a few birdies and stay aggressive.

“I’ve learned – especially this year – that the biggest thing about golf is the mental side.

“There are so many people willing to knock you down that you have to surround yourself with positive people and with people who will help you day in and day out.

“I have to have the attitude that if I wasn’t playing here I’d be spending the week practising.”

Ramsay added: “I’ve been around long enough to know that sometimes it’s the fundamental things you do wrong that can be the issues.

“You have to try to go out there as if you’re a kid, just enjoying it, free-flowing it, picking a target and hitting it.

“It sounds simple but you have to try to stick to those fundamentals and not fall away from them.”

The ‘let’s give this a go and see what happens’ Ramsay mindset will be tested by the enormity of the event, the fact that it’s at the home of golf and with a bit of luck, his name appearing on a leaderboard.

The Aberdonian knows

place

any

his way