Crazy Good

U.S. Amateur champ Richie Ramsay has a loud, quirky manner--and a game that bears watching

Focus and intensity were part of Ramsay's winning ways at the '06 U.S. Amateur at Hazeltine National.

By John Huggan

Photo By Matthew Harris

March 30, 2007

As befits a wee West Highland Terrier nicknamed "Psycho," it usually takes just one less-than-satisfactory swing to set off a patented Richie Ramsay rant.

"Richie!" he'll exclaim in a tone and broad Scottish brogue that is at once impatient, accusatory and condemning. "You've been practicing that shot all week and look at what you've done. That's completely unacceptable. What exactly do you think you're doing?"

Many have wondered the very same thing about the 23-year-old Walker Cupper throughout a notable amateur career that peaked dramatically in 2006, a season crammed with a string of exceptional performances.

With three wins in four matches for Europe in the Bonallack Trophy versus Asia/Pacific, the man from Aberdeen (where his father, Iain, is a lecturer at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and mother, Sandra, is a housekeeper for a local family) was undefeated in six appearances at the Home Internationals, where Scotland defeated perennial rivals, England, Wales and Ireland. Late in the year, the Scot—who finished T-9 individually—led his country to a sixth-place tie at the World Amateur Team Championships in South Africa. Best of all, last August at Hazeltine National, Ramsay became the first man from the home of golf to win the U.S. Amateur Championship in 108 years.

"The first time you hear Richie in full flow you think he must be talking to someone else," says Peter McEvoy, who in 1978 was the last British amateur to play four rounds in the Masters and the man Ramsay hopes to emulate when the University of Stirling student tees up alongside defending champion Phil Mickelson at Augusta next week. "But he isn't. He's talking to himself."

Given the volume of the evidence, Ramsay wisely pleads "no contest" when asked about this unusual propensity to so loudly and vehemently reveal his inner frustrations to those around him.

"Ever since I took up the game I've talked to myself," he admits. "I see it more as muttering under my breath. I just say out loud what most people think inside their heads. I know a lot of people find it all very amusing, especially Americans. When I say stuff, I say it quickly. Add my accent, and they think I'm crazy! So it's funny from that point of view. And I have to admit that, more than once, I have turned 'round to find my friends cracking up at some of the stuff I have been saying. When I see that, I have to laugh myself.

"It's a release for me. I have had people tell me it is a ridiculous thing to do, but it works for me, and it helps me on the course. It's like having a caddie inside my head in that it gives me a swing thought for the next shot. I don't often hit two bad shots in a row."

One who has reaped the benefit of Ramsay's fine play is his regular foursomes partner on the Scottish national team, Lloyd Saltman. But even he acknowledges how easy it is to misunderstand the on-course self-abuse his friend routinely indulges in.

"If you don't know Richie, it is easy to think he is bad-tempered and has a bad attitude," laughs Saltman, who won the silver medal as leading amateur in the British Open at St. Andrews in 2005. "The first time you see him on the course your first thought is to stay out of his way. But he is a perfectionist. And it seems to work for him, as his results would indicate. He lets it out and gets rid of it before the next shot."

Which is fine, once those watching are tuned into Ramsay's eccentric and very particular frequency. But, perhaps not surprisingly, the 2005 Irish Amateur champion's seemingly erratic on-course behavior occasionally has moved from puzzlement through misunderstanding and on into controversy, most notably during last year's Palmer Cup—a match between American and European collegiate golfers—at Prestwick.

Amid what turned out to be a crushing victory for the home side, Ramsay uncharacteristically lost both his singles matches, the second by one hole after he missed a short putt on the 18th green. After shaking hands with his conqueror, Ramsay threw his ball a reported 75 yards over the course where the British Open began 146 years earlier. Later—and this is where the story gets murky—he went back to the nearby Parkstone Hotel and, by at least one account, "trashed" his room.

Months later, sitting in the clubhouse at Royal Aberdeen, where he is an honorary member and was an occasional caddie (at a fee of £40 per bag) until playing commitments took over, Ramsay is initially loathe to discuss the incident.