Richie Ramsay’s change in attitude was provoked by the simple act of cadging a morning lift and has brought lucrative reward almost immediately for the Aberdonian.
Ramsay put together a hugely impressive final round to win from the front at the Omega European Masters at Crans-sur-Sierre at the weekend a victory worth a career-best £275,000 that pushes him into the European Tour’s elite only a month after what he called the ”lowest point” of his professional career.
Then, after missing the cut at both the Scottish Open and the Open Championship in successive weeks, Ramsay retreated to his occasional base in the USA to take stock of where his career was headed.
”That was my biggest fortnight of the year and I was just crestfallen at the way I played,” he explained. ”I knew I needed to take stock so I sat down with people whose opinion I respect about where I was going.”
Ramsay got a few ideas from those discussions but the clincher was the friend who offered him a lift to the gym at the Georgia Country Club, where he has a membership and stays to practise for 12 weeks of the year.
”This guy is in his fifties and he goes to the gym every morning, rain or shine,” said Ramsay. ”I try to go a lot but sometimes it’s easy on tour just to miss a day or two. But I thought if he can do it every day there’s nothing that should stop me.”
Ramsay has become a solid and consistent tour player inside the top 60 of the Race to Dubai since he won in the first event of his second year on tour at the South Africa Open of 2010, but part of his frustrations with his career path surrounded the struggle to get into the world’s top 100.
His disappointment in the July weekend had been underlined by the fact that a solid performance in either would have got him into the top 100 and thereby won a place at the PGA Championship, but Sunday’s win will move him to about 70th when the rankings are updated today.
It also means that Ramsay is in position to win places in the lucrative WGC events and even automatic places in all four majors, but those future dates are surpassed by rather important one coming up when he marries his American girlfriend Angela.
The pair first met during Richie’s other major career highlight, his victory in the US Amateur Championship in 2006 in Angela’s home town of Hazeltine in Minnesota, and they’ll be married there in three weeks.
Meanwhile Paul Lawrie, just two behind Ramsay going into the final round, couldn’t maintain his hot streak that brought him the Johnnie Walker Championship title and settled for a tie for sixth his seventh top-10 finish this season.
The Scot will not play another European Tour event before the Ryder Cup, taking the next two weeks off before playing in his own Invitational event at Deeside Golf Club the week before he heads to Medinah.