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ABERDEEN ASSET MANAGEMENT SCOTTISH OPENJuly 8, 2014Richie RamsayABERDEEN, SCOTLAND THE MODERATOR: Give us an update to start us off, Richie. RICHIE RAMSAY: Yeah, just basically last week I was playing sort of the 18th, my 9th in France and I had a shot and just straightaway didn't feel right, and it wasn't anything I felt before. It was just something that was new and real sharp pain on sort of the top of my collarbone, on top of my first rib. Got some physio on it, and then went out on the course and I played a few holes, but I was really struggling. With this week in mind, I pulled out and I haven't hit any balls since then, so I'm just trying to give it as long as possible to see if it calms down and give myself a chance to play, but it's just‑‑ it's not the best, but I mean just gotta wait and see how it reacts the next few days and get some physio in there and just take a few from there really. THE MODERATOR: Have you been seeing the physio the last few days. RICHIE RAMSAY: Yeah. I was up morning. I was seeing my physio at 7:30. I had a really long chat with her about what the best thing to do was, and kind of came to an agreement depending on which scenario comes around, what the best thing to do was. Just not easy because I want to go and play. So yeah, it's not the best situation. THE MODERATOR: What would you be doing if you weren't here? RICHIE RAMSAY: I would be home, yeah, for sure. There would be not even a question of not teeing up. So I'm trying to give myself as long as possible. And it's difficult because I walked the course yesterday and it's just‑‑ I mean it would be‑‑ if there wasn't a tournament here, it would be just great to go out and play. That's how good the golf course is. But when you have stands up and when you have people that are watching and you have the best players in the world here you want to go out and compete over a course you know, and you just want to test yourself. I mean it would be‑‑ it's a challenge and competition I like. I'm the kind of person that if I was playing any sport, I want to beat whoever I'm playing. And I know that I have a slight home advantage, and you know, this is the week to really use it. It's the biggest tournament for this Scottish players outside of probably the Open. And you know, I've been trying‑‑ you know, this year I've been thinking about rolling putts from 10 feet to win the Scottish Open, not to win the Open. And I just wanted that chance to have that putt. But we're just going to have to wait and see how it goes. Q. Did your physio suggest that playing would do more harm or what? RICHIE RAMSAY: She definitely didn't say that it was going to help. But she said it could hurt it, but just doesn't know to what extent. Q. Will you test it Wednesday night? RICHIE RAMSAY: I was going to maybe test it tomorrow, but I thought the best thing would be to maybe not play the pro am maybe this afternoon, save on that and then try and hit some balls and see if it can take the‑‑ I don't think I'll make a decision. I don't think I will tee up after three or four holes. That wouldn't be fair to the guy who's first reserve and it wouldn't be first to myself probably. I'll be on the range. I'll have balls and then I'll know whether it's right or it's wrong, because it's kind of one of those things your head's saying, don't go‑‑ maybe don't go out and play and you're going to hurt it, and your heart's saying you're playing at Royal Aberdeen. It's your home Open. You've kind of got to play it. So yeah, it's just a lot of different emotions, but hopefully it turns out all right, but just gotta wait and see. Q. What are your chances? RICHIE RAMSAY: Yeah, it's probably‑‑ yeah, probably about 50/50. I've just got to‑‑ it just depends. Like if it gets better in the next 24 hours, get physio and it loosens off, then great, I might do that. But it might go the other way, might go out and hit a few balls and then suddenly I feel it straightaway. It's pretty much up in the air. Q. ItÂ’s been a tough year so far? RICHIE RAMSAY: Yeah. I'm not having the best of years really. Yeah, 2014 hasn't been that kind to me, and I looked over at‑‑ you kind of look at it, and you look‑‑ probably analytical is probably somebody you know. You sit there and you get depressed about it and you think, Jesus, nothing's ever going to turn around, and all I want to do is go and play golf. And then the flip side you look at it and you say at the end of the day I'm not really having too much hardship. You know, I'm not doing some of the things that some other guys do and get a lot of credit for, like down at Kingsfield for the day and this guy walks in and it's a guy that's been fighting in Afghanistan or something like that. You know, you try to sort of try and stay level headed about that. In this game it's easy for your mental state to just push you way under and then everything feels like it's on top of you, and you know, you're kind of‑‑ you're the unluckiest person in the world, but it's nice to have doses of perspective like that occasionally. Q. Did you speak to him? RICHIE RAMSAY: It was over at Kingsfield, he was telling me about what happened and kind of what he went through and the different kind of steps, you know. And it's like, you've hurt your neck. That's what's happened to me at the end of the day. It's not like you're standing there and you're getting shot by a sniper. It's like, you know, you live your dream and that's what you get to do, so you've got to kind of look at it that way as opposed to going the other way and getting hard on yourself. Those things are nice to have. They're nice to see people kind of fight, and they give you a little bit of inspiration probably as well. Yeah, it's an injury, and I've just got to kind of deal with it. I've got to fight back a little bit more and probably use this week, if it doesn't work out, to fuel whatever I need to do to get back healthy. Q. I saw you tweeted Chris Hoy for advice? RICHIE RAMSAY: A bit of a fresh report. A bit of guidance almost, like I mean‑‑ it's just not‑‑ the hardest thing about playing golf is not going out and practising and not going to the gym or whatever. It's dealing with stuff off the course that sometimes impacts stuff on the course. And having the right mental attitude and stuff is something I've been really good at, but for the last like six months I haven't had probably the best approach and I've been getting frustrated on the course especially the last three tournaments where I haven't performed, and I thought maybe he might throw some light on getting through the harder times to get to the high points. One of the best advice that I never got was I played with Thomas Bjorn in Muirfield last year, and he said that you can't let scars from one tournament impact a good tournament. So he says, basically if you go a week and you play badly, don't worry about it because the five or six weeks where you play really good and you're in contention, that'll happen. You just can't let the bad weeks impact the good weeks, and he used Graeme McDowell and Justin Rose as examples. Like at that time McDowell had played seven tournaments and I think he had gone something like missed cut, missed cut, win; missed cut, win, win. And the reason he won last week was he probably‑‑ I mean I'm sure he played great golf, but he probably was just strongest mentally of anybody in that field, and that course if there's going to be one course that's going to test you, it's probably going to be the Golf Nationale. So it's just with experience you pick up these things, and you try and make the lows or try and get out of the lows as quickly as possible so you have those weeks where you play well. But yeah, anybody who's Scottish and has done well I've got kind of big admiration for them, so yeah, Chris Hoy and Andy Murray, any kind of advice they would have I would take on board. Q. What kind of notes? RICHIE RAMSAY: Just things I scribbled down when I've done things really well, and then when I've done things poorly. Technical points, things when I've just, you know, when you get to start feeling about suddenly you hole lots of putts, and you realise I'm doing it a certain way, you jot it down. But it's more like the mental things, you know, the belief and telling yourself that you're good, not just going out there and my brain was pretty much scattered on like past and present, worrying about what shots I hit before or where I missed it or if I hit it in the water or something like that whereas I just need to focus on the present and try and go through the process, but my head's being scattered just with injury and not feeling well. It's a double whammy because when I didn't feel well after Singapore for like six weeks I wasn't going to the gym and then you don't get that kind of release, that sort of stress release, that good feeling from going to the gym. So it's just a little bit of everything getting on top of you, but like I said, the little doses of things that somebody you respect says to you or somebody who's a close friend texts you and sends you a message and says, look, don't worry about what's happening. We realize how good you are. You just need to realize how good you are. Little things like that that kind of spur you on, I suppose. Q. Can you take us through the catalogue of injuries? RICHIE RAMSAY: From like probably when I came back, I think it was Morocco until Singapore, I was pretty good. I was feeling really good. I felt like I was improving, and then I caught something in Singapore which wiped me out of the pro am. I played the tournament, and then I got back here and I didn't feel good at all. Shivers and no energy, wasn't hungry. Went to Spain, and then the week I played in Spain I wasn't feeling good at all that week. I was on antibiotics, got through that. Started to feel all right at the BMW. Then Sweden. End of BMW, start of Sweden I started really struggling in my chest, and then respiratory chest infection. I was on antibiotics for that five days. Still wasn't feeling that good, and I was sick the week after that out of nowhere. And then just couldn't work out what it was. I went for a chest x‑ray in Ireland. They thought it was something in my pancreas or something, and it didn't work out it was that. And then France was like the first real tournament I actually feel all right. I don't feel hot/cold. I feel like I've got some energy. I feel like I'm ready to go, and then France I just didn't play that well the first round. And then I felt really good going into the second and started playing well and I just hit that tee shot off 18 and straightaway I was like, this is not good, whatever it was. It was a new injury. And then that was like the next thing. I'm waiting for the third thing. It comes in 3s, doesn't it. So yeah, if the third thing could come along and I could just get it out of the way and I could continue with the golf, that would be great. But yeah, I just felt like it was one thing after another, and I'm kind of‑‑ all I want to do is‑‑ it sounds funny, all I want to do is play golf and enjoy going out and playing golf, but I just haven't had that kind of chance this year so much. Q. This is your last chance to qualify for The Open? RICHIE RAMSAY: Yeah. Yeah. That was the thing I couldn't play the Open qualifying because I thought 36 holes and then going and suddenly playing a full tournament is not a good idea, just to protect it, and I thought France, of course, suits me. Ireland, I've played well in Ireland before, and then played here. I thought that's three good opportunities to play well. And I normally have those five or six good weeks, and I thought a few other TOUR ones. And I thought if I have those good weeks and those three, then it could open the door, but it just hasn't worked out that way. Q. You know this course as well as anyone. What do you make of the setup this week and what would it take to win this week? RICHIE RAMSAY: I would say the setup is probably one of the best I've ever seen them on the TOUR. It's going to be extremely tough, but it's going to be fair. And the toughness will really fall off the tee. You will see a lot of guys this week who will miss off the tee and who will go for shots at the greens and it'll snag and it'll pull it left, so that's where you really get into trouble. It's difficult to put a number what people will shoot around here, but I know that someone said to me this morning the wind's going to come out of the northwest, which is the worst possible wind for that course, because the Front 9's going to play long, and you're going to be hitting all the trouble coming out, and then you're going to be struggling to hold the fairways on the way back because it's off to the right. So yeah, don't‑‑ I mean the scores could be good if it's calm, but it's going to play really tough for them, I think. And the setup, they've done a really good job of making sure the galleries are far enough outside that they don't trample down rough but close enough that they can see what guys are doing. So you're going to have to hit the fairways to make the score. It will be the guy who has the all‑around game who wins and that's why it's a great golf course. It's not holing putts. It's not hitting shots close. It's not chipping. It's not mental strength. It's the full package, and I think that is why you have the field that you have is because guys know that if you play‑‑ I think Rory said the other day if you play here and you play well, you have the whole package, and that's what you need to win the Open as well. You need the whole package. And it's‑‑ there's only one tournament that's bigger than this tournament on the European Tour, and this course is as close as you'll get to an Open course, par 150, 200 yards maybe that you could add to it. Q. WhatÂ’s the rough like compared to usual? RICHIE RAMSAY: It's probably about‑‑ it's probably about right‑‑ I think it's a little worse than it usually is because you've had that sunshine and then you get those squalls. So you get the rain and then the sun comes out, and it just‑‑ you've got some real thick parts at the bottom of the rough, whereas it's normally not as thick as that. So you know, if you ask a member, which I am, but you ask a guy who plays here every week, they'll probably tell you the greens were twice as fast last week and the rough was twice as high and the wind was blowing 45 miles an hour. But it's not as bad as that. It's just fair. It's going to be tough, but if you think about what Muirfield was like last year, it's very similar setup to that without being as firm and fast I would say, which is‑‑ I mean you got fairways and that weight is sensible. You can't have it bouncing all over the place. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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