RAMSAY SURVIVES CADDIE BLUNDER

ABERDONIAN WINS US AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP
QUARTER-FINAL AT THE TWENTY-FIRST HOLE

REPORT FROM THE USGA WEBSITE

By David Shefter and Greg Smore, USGA
Chaska, Minnesota – Thomas Buller might be the happiest man in Chaska. Make that the most relieved person.
Buller is not a competitor in this year’s U.S. Amateur, but his accidental decision late Friday afternoon nearly cost his player a match.
Serving as a caddie for Scotland’s Richie Ramsay, the Chaska High School senior inadvertently touched the line of putt at Hazeltine National Golf Club’s par-3 17th hole. The action was seen by Ramsay’s quarter-final opponent, Rickie Fowler, and the match’s referee, Dick Rundle, was brought in to settle the claim.

When Buller admitted to touching the surface – a breach of Rule 16-1 – Ramsay sustained a loss-of-hole penalty. Suddenly a one-up lead turned into all square (Richie had been three up, but lost the 14th, 16th and 17th).
Ramsay, however, did not get angry nor did he publicly scold his caddie. Buller’s parents, Mike and Jean, are serving as Ramsay’s host family this week and their son offered to carry Ramsay’s bag for the championship.
So with momentum seemingly slipping away – Fowler had also won the 16th hole with a birdie – Ramsay re-focused. An experienced competitor who played in the 2005 Walker Cup for Great Britain and Ireland, Ramsay had faced plenty of difficult situations. Now he was under tremendous adversity.
All he did was convert a clutch 12-foot par putt at 18 to extend the match, then got a brief reprieve when Fowler missed a 6-footer for birdie on the first extra hole (No. 10) that could have closed out the match. Two holes later, Ramsay holed a 15-footer for birdie to move into Saturday morning’s semi-finals against Webb Simpson.
"I just said, ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s all right,’ " said the 23-year-old Ramsay. "He’s made a mistake. I’ve made mistakes. You’ve just got to think he’s going to learn from it.
"It’s tough but I know he’s feeling bad. If I turn around and say something to him, he’s going to feel even worse. So you’ve just got to say, ‘I’m still in the game and I concentrate on what happened on the hole before, I’m not focused on my objective, which is to win the match and hit some good shots. I managed to do that on 18."
Ramsay has spent some time this year working with sports psychologist Richard Cox. They talked about focusing on small details and eliminating any outside distractions. Ramsay also has thrived under pressure. He recalled holing a 25-footer on the last hole to win the European Under-21 Team Championship for Scotland over rival England.
So the 12-footer on 18 against the 17-year-old Fowler was just another in a long line of pressure situations he’s faced.
"It’s just visualizing the ball going into the hole," said Ramsay. "There’s no better feeling under pressure. That’s what you spend all your time practicing for. Luckily, it just worked out for me."
Ramsay lipped out a 12-footer for birdie at No. 10, the first extra hole, before Fowler failed to convert his short birdie attempt. Then at the 21st hole (No. 12), Ramsay executed a perfect right-to-left approach that stopped 15 feet behind the flagstick.
"The whole day, I had hit some good putts and they hadn’t gone in," said Ramsay. "So on the last few holes, I was thinking that I hadn’t [made] anything today, I’m owed a few putts. So I was stroking the ball good and I just managed to hole that putt on 12. And in a way, it evened itself out. But, you know, it could have gone either way at the end."

Ramsey will finish up his college work this fall at the University of Stirling in Scotland. He did come to the U.S. five years ago to attend Midland junior college in Texas. That experiment lasted only one year.
Ramsay felt he had better opportunities back home, with access to coaching and a more comfortable environment.
"I’ve got a really good team right now," said Ramsay. "It is basically really good support from the Scottish Golf Union. My coach is employed by the Scottish Golf Union and he’s the national coach, a guy by the name of Ian Rae. They just say we’ll do this for you or we’ll do that for you. All you’ve got to do is go out and play golf."