The American connection:
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Richie Ramsay is shaping as
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Donald Trump's tour pro

FROM THE HERALDSCOTLAND.COM WEBSITE

By DOUGLAS LOWE
The ever more impressive American portfolio of Richie Ramsay is looking increasingly likely to include an attachment to Donald Trump’s planned links in Scotland.
Ramsay’s connections with Uncle Sam have been growing steadily since he became the first home-based Scot to win the US Amateur Championship at Hazeltine in 2006. Trump was quick to jump on the young Scot’s bandwagon by sending him a letter of congratulations. It must have been obvious to the American billionaire that this was a man he could use.
Ramsay, moreover, met his American girlfriend Angela at Hazeltine, and she lives in Atlanta near where he has a lifetime membership at the Golf Club of Georgia as a result of that US title. He regularly visits the club to keep his short game sharp during winter and has an American sports psychologist in Bob Rotella.
Any US amateur champion is a prospect and the Scottish connection made him unique, especially as he comes from Aberdeen where Trump’s plan to build the world’s finest golf course (in his own estimation) at Menie Estate was causing waves of controversy.
The thought must have crossed Trump’s mind that Ramsay would be an ideal man to cultivate as a popular public face for the enterprise.
When asked during the BMW Italian Open whether an endorsement was in the pipeline, a grin spread across the 26-year-old’s face, he pointed out that his cv included five years studying marketing and sports studies at Stirling University and added: “I’m not going to say any more than that."
The comment followed his revelation that he had partnered Trump in a game of golf over the Trump National Golf Club course at Bedminster, New Jersey, against Ramsay’s own long-time American friend and supporter Dick Gilbert, and teaching professional Dan May.
Ramsay helped to swell the Trump fortune in a small way by taking the money that day but, more significantly, the fact that the great man took time out to host Ramsay underlines the interest the American tycoon has in him.
If you are looking for further evidence of an alliance, in Italy last week the Scot was quick to take the opportunity to bang the drum about the merits of Trump and his planned development in Aberdeen.
“At Bedminster and the Trump course at West Palm Beach where I have also played the facilities and the courses are just world class. Everything he does is really good,” said Ramsay.
“Up north [in Scotland] we don’t have that all-encompassing Turnberry-esque resort where you have the hotel and all the facilities, a good range, cottages you can stay in and a world-class course. It is on some of the best (golfing) land you are going to find not just in Scotland but anywhere around the world.
“When we were talking about it I said, ‘If you do what you’ve done in America and produce the resort you have produced here I think it can only be a good thing.’ In Aberdeen, I think, there is the market for it as well. It is going to be cold but you can play at Royal Aberdeen all year round. You maybe have to put on mitts and a woolly hat, but it [the north-east] doesn’t get the rain that makes it difficult sometimes on the west coast.”
Trump, whom Ramsay rated a single-figure handicapper, might need also that hat to keep his riotous hair in place in the wind.
The pair are kindred spirits in their outlooks on life. A bee in Ramsay’s bonnet is what he perceives as the generally damaging sceptical attitude of Scots compared to the “can-do” philosophy that he has found in the US.
“When he [Trump] does anything, it is not in half-measures and, when I do something, I want to do it 100% as well,” said Ramsay.
Anyone who plays in the Georgia Cup at the Golf Club of Georgia is made a lifetime member. It is an annual match just before the Masters between the US and British amateur champions, and Ramsay in 2007 found himself playing for the US against the Frenchman Julien Guerrier, and winning into the bargain.
The members there are delighted with the way Ramsay has been progressing, winning his maiden European Tour title, the co-sanctioned South Africa Open just before Christmas last year. That victory came on the back of a visit to the club where he views the short-game practice facilities particularly as second to none.
He was last there in April for a two-week spell when the European Tour was in China and Korea. He viewed his third-round, seven-under-par 65 over the Royal Park course in Turin – where he finished joint 13th on Sunday – as a direct result and a sign of a return to form.
Once he has established himself on the European Tour, he fully intends to have a tilt at the PGA Tour in the US – just the kind of attitude that you would expect would be endorsed by Trump.