RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — If the LPGA and PGA Tour ever resurrect a team event, watch out for the pair from Fulton, Mississippi. As of last week, the town of 3,500 has produced both PGA Tour and LPGA champions in Chad Ramey and Ally Ewing. The two friends grew up together at Fulton Country Club, a hilly nine-hole course that tips at 5,700 yards for two loops.
Ramey, a rookie on the PGA Tour, won last week’s Corales Puntacana Championship in his 16th career start. Ewing is a two-time winner on the LPGA and is currently tied for fifth at the LPGA’s first major of the year, the Chevron Championship. She’s three strokes back of leader Hinako Shibuno after a 4-under 68.
Ewing was on the range warming up for a practice round at Mission Hills Country Club on Sunday when she saw that Ramey was in the hunt after four consecutive birdies on Nos. 13-16. By the time she got to the fairway on the second hole, he’d won.
“I sent him a text immediately,” said a proud Ewing, “which I’m sure he got a billion.”
There’s no driving range at Fulton Country Club. The longest putt on the putting green might be about 45 feet. Ramey was the only kid at the course close to Ewing’s age and his dad happened to run the place. He was longer and stronger and had a better short game, and Ewing soaked up every chance she could to practice alongside him.
The 29-year-old Mississippi State grads pushed each other, and the members never complained when their cross-country golf occasionally got in the way.
“They saw what we were going to be capable of,” said Ewing.
Ramey once shot 27 on the par-35 course with an ace on the last hole. His father would often throw down four balls inside 100 yards and challenge them to get two of the four up-and-down.
Many people joined Fulton for the good-sized pool. But there was Ewing, winning the club championship while in grade school.
“I remember a guy came up to me and said, ‘I put money on you in the calcutta,’” said Ewing. “I went back to my parents and said ‘What’s a calcutta?’ ”
She chipped in on the last to take the title.
A group of members went out to Pebble Beach earlier this year to watch Ramey compete in the AT&T, and they’ve come out to the LPGA to watch Ewing, too. The two-time Solheim Cup player is currently ranked No. 25 in the world.
Ramey and Ewing both work with the same instructor, V.J. Trolio at Old Waverly Golf Club, and if they have a lesson the same day they’ll go out and play nine holes.
“We knew it was only time,” said Ewing of Ramey getting his first PGA Tour victory.
No doubt Ramey will be checking scores at the Chevron this weekend as his childhood friend seeks to win her first major. Ewing has two top-10 finishes in four starts at this event, finishing tied for seventh last year.
“I feel like the more disciplined I am around this golf course,” said Ewing, “obviously it takes shots, I have to execute, I have to roll putts in, but I’m really disciplined out there, looking away from holes that just kind of say, Hey, hit it at me.
“But I don’t do that. I try to stay really disciplined. My caddie and I just really stick to targets, and it certainly helps to roll in putts.”
To that end, she recently started working with Vision 54’s Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott on putting, shortening her routing and trying to think less and react more like an athlete. Naturally an analytical person, the less she can free up her body on the greens the better.
Channel those two kids from Fulton Country Club who grew up to take on the world.
