Bromance
This Korn Ferry Tour pro lost the Maine Open to his friend by a stroke and was genuinely thrilled about it
Friendship as we know it is going extinct. We just spent a year not seeing people we previously wouldn’t have gone five days without. Half our “friends” we’ve only ever met online. Hell, even the high five has been rendered obsolete, dealing a crushing blow to dad cliques everywhere. At the Korn Ferry Tour’s inaugural Live and Work in Maine Open (actual title) on Sunday, however, friendship made its last stand when Joshua Creel, moments after losing to his close friend Chad Ramey by a single stroke, could be seen lounging in the grass nearby with a beverage intermittently shouting “give us a speech!” in the direction of the trophy ceremony.
That’s some Big Buddy Energy if we’ve ever seen it. It might even warm the heart if we had a heart left to warm. Ramey’s last win came eight years ago when he was a junior at Mississippi State. His fiancee and mom were in the gallery on Sunday and his father, Stanley, was on the bag. This was as close to a life-affirming win as you get in sports, and Creel—who tee'd off nearly an hour and a half before Ramey, firing a final-round 64 to heap the pressure on—clearly knew how much him losing meant to his friend.
“Had my dad on the bag,” said Ramey after his round. “The blood, sweat and tears over the years that I’ve put in, I wouldn’t have anyone else here. He’s the one that got me started, we still work on my swing together. It’s just kind of a cherry on top for the first win for them to be here.”
Awwww. Overall an awesome story between two guys United in Grind. Here’s hoping we see both of them in The Big Show soon enough (Ramey locked up 2021-22 Tour Card last week), because SB2K just ain’t what it used to be . . .