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U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 26, 2006

Richie Ramsay

CHASKA, MINNESOTA

CRAIG SMITH: Richie, thanks for coming in. You played from the lead today, but you have this habit of making it real interesting toward the end.

RICHIE RAMSAY: Yeah, I really don't know what happened on 16. I didn't think I grounded my club. If it's shown to be different on the TV, on 17, if I did ground my club, I'll look on TV and I'll hold my hands up. But I just basically said to him, I didn't do anything intentional. And from my viewpoint, I didn't ground my club. But obviously someone's maybe seen something that showed it to be different.

CRAIG SMITH: Sounds to me like one of the things that's getting you victories is your composure. You could have lost it yesterday; you could have lost it today.

RICHIE RAMSAY: Yeah, you know, it's tough out there. Every hole's tough. 16, like you say, I made it a bit more interesting. But I managed to come through. I was still 1 up with two to play, and I made a good birdie on 15.

So there's everything to play for and he's still got to come in and make some putts. He's got to beat me over the last two holes. I know what I can do. I know the shots that I've got in the bag and I wasn't making any mistakes.

I made a really clutch putt on 17 from about six foot because we both had difficult putts up the hill after mine spun back down. But to hole that, he was a bit unlucky on the last in that his second shot was plugged. I would have gone for the pin from my bunker shot, but I knew I had to knock it out and 2 putt. And I didn't want to leave it short, so I hit it down to about ten foot and from there it's just roll up to the hole. It worked out okay.

Q. 17 yesterday, 16 today, what do you have planned for tomorrow?

RICHIE RAMSAY: A win. (Laughter).

Q. Did your caddie cuss you out after 16 today?

RICHIE RAMSAY: No, he was quite good, he said you know, Thomas has been quite good through the week. If I make a mistake, he's just like, don't worry about it. Put it in the past.

We normally don't speak too much about clubs or anything like that. We just have a little chat sometimes if we're walking down the fairway. I have a couple of words to myself, and which I think just brings me back into being a bit more composed and just sort of knuckle back down. I made a mistake, that's not going to happen again, learn from it, move on. I normally have a few words to myself whether it's it my head or maybe just a little mutter under my breath.

Q. What sort of words?

RICHIE RAMSAY: Not the words that you could probably write down. (Laughter) Just some choice words probably to myself to sort of just be a bit more a bit more focused on what I'm doing and concentrate that bit harder so that I don't make any mistakes.

Q. Did you hear Thomas say anything to you as you walked up to the tee on 17?

RICHIE RAMSAY: He just said: "Don't worry about it. You're 1 up with two to play." And in my head, I just thought, he's right, I'm 1 up with two to play, this guy has to come out and beat me over the last two holes. As far as I was concerned, I was going to hit some good shots there.

I love coming down the stretch when there's pressure on you. It's a great atmosphere and I just thought, I can go out there and hit some good shots. I made par on 17 and hit a couple of decent shots on 18 just green side. I think I would have made par if I had gone for the pin. But, you know, in match play, you're not sometimes playing the course. You've just got to watch what your opponents do, and I just knocked it out in two putts.

Q. Does this change anything for you with what you have earned by making the finals?

RICHIE RAMSAY: With regards to what I could get into possibly? My plan was going to tour school, European Tour School in September to try and get some experience. If something came out of it, that would be fantastic. But if not, I'll go back and finish my degree. And I really want to finish my degree because I've worked hard for it for 3 1/2 years, and I think only one more semester, I have three months. To get that, that would be just as important as playing well in a good golf tournament because it's something that you've worked towards for a long time and you know, to get it would be fantastic.

So I think I was always going to go back and finish it. But I think it doesn't really change too much for me because I was always going to try and stay amateur.

Q. Your degree is going to be in marketing. You've done a good bit to market yourself this week.

RICHIE RAMSAY: Yeah, obviously you know, there's a lot of young guys out here that are really good players. And the transition from being top level amateur to moving into professional ranks is difficult. If you can get a lot of support behind you, that adds to that.

I think a lot of people say stuff, to try and get help from management companies. But if you go out there and play good golf and you sit down with someone and they say, "what have you done," all you do is just hand them a sheet of paper with what you've done on it and it speaks. You don't need to say anything. If you go out there and you win titles, titles talk and good scores talk. If they can see that and they can see especially if you can perform under pressure, I think that will maybe kind of help you a bit. So obviously it's helped me this week.

Q. So you're planning to turn professional or you're not?

RICHIE RAMSAY: I'm not at the moment, no. But at some stage I would like to ideally.

I've always had the Walker Cup in the back of my mind 2007. That was the best experience I've ever had on the golf course in Chicago, it's fantastic. But at the same time it's the worst because it was a narrow loss, but it's a loss all the same. I'm sure there's a few boys out there who want to go and rectify that, but at the same time, there's a lot of good players on GB&I, so to try and get on that team is a big challenge. I can do. I set myself high targets and you have to work hard and work towards them. That's one of the targets I would have in line in the next year, but obviously if that happens, then I would try and maybe make a move after that.

Q. So you were going to play Q School as an amateur?

RICHIE RAMSAY: Yeah, I was just going to go as an amateur and try and pick up a bit of experience. Just see how it went, basically. You know, if I did really well and it came down to it, I would probably make a decision. But if I don't do that great, I'd just say, hey, I had a good time, good experience, use that, learn from it, go back, finish my degree and play full time amateur for a few months after that.

Q. What does it mean to you to know that you're going to be in the U.S. Open and almost probably certainly The Masters?

RICHIE RAMSAY: You know, when you say it, it's easy to kind of someone say, you're going to play in the U.S. Masters, but I don't think I'll believe it until I've walked up drive up Magnolia Lane and saw the clubhouse and walked on the grass. I think until you're there, you won't believe it. Because I remember getting waking up late at night and watching it because of the time difference, you're watching at home and you're seeing these guys play Augusta and you just think, this is brilliant. Some of my friends have been fortunate to play it.

So to get a chance at that would be amazing, but I've just got to take one step at a time and all I can focus on is my match tomorrow.

Q. What time would you wake up to watch it?

RICHIE RAMSAY: I think it would be like well, I'd probably go to bed and then wake up and it would be like half 11:00 or early morning to try and catch the last few holes.

Q. Who all is here? I know there were other GB&I players here this week, but do you have other people that are here but this week?

RICHIE RAMSAY: I'm just staying with the Brewers. They have kind of been the people that have been helping me. They have kind of been my family this week.

But just basically us Walker Cuppers. We've been out here for a couple of weeks now. We had a great time last year and we all kind of play in similar tournaments, so we know each other. It's been a good laugh and we each went to Scratch Players last week and Ollie (Oliver Fisher) was in the playoff, which is great for British golf because, you know, it's difficult to compare British golf to American golf. For us to come over here and do well shows that we can be up there with the best players because the best tournaments are sometimes over here. So you've got to come out and show that, so it's been good to for us to come out.

Q. You were exempt having been a member of 2005. If that had not been extended to you, would you have tried to qualify, would you have tried to come over?

RICHIE RAMSAY: I would probably say no there, because, I mean, to come over and qualify, it's 36 holes. You're never guaranteed a spot, really tough field. To fly all that way and have all that expense, it's tough to vindicate that. You've got to realize that we get funding and it's got to be sometimes you've got to use it really wisely, and if I said to someone, I'm going over here to play 36 holes, they would be like, well, that's going to cost, I don't know, over a thousand pounds and it's hard to sort of say, you know, can you go over and do that. So probably not. That exemption was a big plus.

Q. I know you're from Aberdeen and you play at one of the great courses in the world. Can you talk a little bit about your introduction to golf and sort of your evolution as a golfer?

RICHIE RAMSAY: I was introduced to golf by my grandfather who unfortunately is passed away at the moment. He used to take me out and we used to play a bit.

As a young kid, I was always a soccer player, as you guys would say, footballer. I was always a soccer player when I was younger. So I used to just play on the weekends, play a bit of golf, and my grandpa used to take me out and we used to play nine holes at a place called Hazel Head (ph) which wasn't far from where I live.

When I got to about 13 or 14, I had to make a decision what path I was going to go down. I found I was better at golf and I started to practice a bit more and I managed to get into some tournaments and played and I found that I won a few tournaments and my handicap's coming down. I thought, you know, I'm not too bad at this, it's if gun, good fun traveling.

And then I think the big step for me was I joined Royal Aberdeen Golf Club at 15, which you know the golf course, you've got to hit good shots to make a good score there. You can't just go around there and hit it average. You've got all different kind of shots. I think that was a massive learning curve for me.

There's a couple of guys there called Francis Clark, Junior and Colin Fraser (ph) who sort of took me under their wing and I played a bit of golf with them. It was good for me. They are older guys and they just said a couple things, you know, choice words about how I should play shots. We just had quite a few games and had a great laugh. For me that was really good, and for them, they didn't need to come out and take me under their winning. They could have just left me and said go away and play. It was a big step for me playing there and it's brought on my game leaps and bounds, because the courses we play back home, all the big championships are links courses. And if you can play one of the best links in Britain and you can play well around it and you can play all the shots and you can go in it without any kind of anxiety over playing these courses, you know you've got the shots, you can go out there and play it.

So I think a lot of the credit has got to go to the members at Royal Aberdeen Golf Club, and hopefully for them, I can go out there and win tomorrow.

Q. How far is it why your house to Carnoustie, and would it be more meaningful to get that third invitation with a win tomorrow, The Open, also?

RICHIE RAMSAY: Carnoustie is only about 45 minutes to an hour from me. A couple of my friends play there, Kyle Kiminko (ph) and Adam Remesy (ph) they play golf there, and I've played this once before. Without any disrespect to the U.S. Masters and the U.S. Open and the PGA, it is the Open Championship and the history behind it is phenomenal. One of my friends, Lloyd Thompson, (ph) played at St. Andrews and he did fantastically well. It's on a links course, as well. So to have that and to be at home and have Scottish players would be unbelievable.

But I've got to stay focused and just all I can think of is tomorrow and praying well. So that's probably got to be put to the back of my mind at the moment.

End of FastScripts.

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