The golf world is yet again in mourning with the news of the sudden death of renowned and much admired Melbourne-based physiotherapist Ramsay McMaster.

Ramsay was just 49 years of age.

Ramsay McMaster - How we will remember him, cheerful and with a smile on his face.

Scottish-born Ramsay sadly died on Thursday after suffering what’s believed to be a stroke and he couldn’t be resuscitated.

Earlier in the day Ramsay had been undertaking his passion and that was training a group of golfers among the sand dunes of the Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

It was when he returned home to his family he collasped. 

Ramsay’s love for the game of golf originated from Scotland where he grew up.

That passion for the ancient game was on show at an early age when at 14 years of age he played 81 holes in one day at his home club of Bridge of Allan.

The 9-hole course has the unique position of being laid-out on the side of a mountain and it was humorously stated that “you needed one leg shorter than the other to play it.”

Ramsay was an ‘A’ grade golfer and his main claim to fame was winningVictoria’s largest Pro-Am at Portsea Golf Club, in between being a full time golf physical therapist and fitness consultant.

His passion for the sport continued when he migrated to Australia and established arguably the world’s first ever Golf Injury Clinic, The Melbourne Golf Injury Clinic.

The clinic has since attended to the needs of over 4,500 amateur and golf club golfers of all ages from all over the world, and has provided over 50,000 fitness programs and golf specific treatments.

Ramsay’s golf specific screening and profiling has been used by many of the world’s top Tour players. He was a golf fitness consultant to some of the world’s leading Tour Pros. 

Ramsay worked closely with leading coaches including Steve Bann, Jim McLean and coaches of England, Scotland, Norway. Switzerland, Belgium, New Zealand, China, Taiwan and Australia. 

Among those is the renowed Pete Cowen whose stable of players include Lee Westwood, Thomas Bjorn, Padraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell, Henrik Stenson and Simon Dyson.

Other players who benefitted from Ramsay’s work included Women’s U.S. Open winner. Alison Nicholas, former U.S. Amateur Champion and PGA leading money earner, Matt Kuchar, the World’s Leading Amateur in 2005 Michael Sim, Australian Amateur Champion Andrew Martin and Scotland’s Marc Warren, a double European Tour winner.

Ramsay also worked with the likes of Oliver Wilson, Soren Hanen, Alex Noren, Danny Willet and David Horsey.

In his career Ramsay lectured to over 1,000 physical therapists, trainers, sport science and PGA professionals worldwide and was much respected world leader in this area of golf. 

Ramsay wrote two Get Fit for Golf  (Parts 1 and 2) and also produced five software programs: The Training for Golf; The Body and Golf; The Golf Fitness System Level 1 and 2; and The Club Golfer CDs which are used worldwide at all levels as golf specific training systems.

Ramsay was the ‘Golf Training’ consultant to Golf Digest and Golf Magazine and has presented many papers at Golf Science and Coaching Summits. 

The genial Scot was also training two of the world’s leading female golfers, Na-Yeon Choi and Shiho Oyama.

Ramsay was a full time Golf Physical Therapist, a serious golfer and is heavily involved in progressive golf specific fitness rehabilitation and injury prevention at all levels and in most countries which have a serious interest in the sport of golf.

He has lectured to members at elite clubs such as Gleneages, Royal Hague, Doral, Royal Melbourne and Hong Kong Golf Clubs as well as The Belfry, the home of the Ryder cup, and many more. Ramsay and his staff are responsible for the Medical Services to all players on the Ladies’ European Tour.

In addition, Ramsay was a consultant physiotherapist to the American ‘First Tee’ progam as well as a member of the Titleist Performance Panel. 

He also has a clinic in Hong Kong.

I first met Ramsay during the course of my European Tour reporting, and then on each and every other occasion I bumped into him his fun-loving demeanour remained unchanged.

That cheeky looking smile on his face as you can see in the picture above will be sadly missed.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife Caroline and their two children, Zander
(11) and Edie (8).