There is no hiding the drive and ambition of this talented 26-year-old Aberdonian who has followed a fabulous amateur career with steady progress in the professional ranks. After tasting the rich flavour of contending for a big prize yesterday, he was in no doubt that outright victory is his next target.

“I have had a great week and things are falling into place,” he said after closing with a three-under-par 69 over the Old Course at St Andrews for a prize of £134,677 with a 16-under-par aggregate of 272, four behind the English winner, Simon Dyson, who claimed his fourth European Tour triumph.

“I need to replicate this more often because we are looking for someone to be up there winning big titles. There are a number of players knocking on the door – Callum Macaulay, Steven O’Hara and myself – and if one of us can burst through that would be brilliant.”

The result lifted Ramsay 45 places to No.96 on the Race to Dubai order of merit to ensure that he will be among the top 115 who have a full playing season next year. He is also up 73 places to No.229 in the world rankings, overtaking Montgomerie who missed the cut and has fallen to No.252.

There are other Scots such as Gary Orr, David Drysdale, Alastair Forsyth and Paul Lawrie ahead of him, but rookie Ramsay is a fresh new face with that unprecedented US Amateur Championship behind him, a victory that has already enabled him to rub shoulders with Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Padraig Harrington.

He also learned how costly closing errors can be. Changing his mind from a 3-wood to a 3-iron on the tee at the last and aiming to clear Grannie Clark’s Wynd to leave him his ideal wedge distance to the pin, he came up a foot short of the grass on the far side of the road.

Not for the first time he fell foul of the rules. Asking for relief from the most famous piece of Tarmac in golf, he learned that it is an integral part of the course and had to play the ball as it lay, a prospect that filled him with dread because of a previous wrist injury. He chose to chip up, his ball coming up short in the Valley of Sin. From there he sent his approach four feet past and agonisingly missed the one back. Had he holed it his prize would have been in excess of £80,000 more.

“It’s disappointing coming off with a bogey, but I have to look at the whole package. I think I played some fantastic golf on home soil in front of a great crowd and overall I was pretty solid. If it had been my day a little more – I shaved a few edges – you never know what might have happened,” he said.

Ramsay’s best finish before yesterday was joint 10th in the Wales Open, where the rules bit him as well when he used an incorrect method of 
establishing casual water and was questioned at length about whether he improved his lie by pressing down with his foot in an area where he was to replace his ball.

He was in second place on his own yesterday at 18 under with a birdie 4 at the 14th before dropping a shot at the 15th. Then a gutsy 4 at the treacherous 17th set him up for the kind of finish he hopes will have an even happier ending next time.

Dyson, who closed with a six-under-par 66 that began with a blitz of six birdies in his opening seven holes, is up 12 places to No.8 on the order of merit with his £485,850 prize and into the elite world top 50 at No.44 which raises the prospect of a first visit to Augusta National for the Masters next year.

“That’s the one I want to play,” admitted the 31-year-old from Manchester, “and it also gets me into some good tournaments next year.” These include the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai next month and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational next year.

Dyson, winner of the KLM Open in the Netherlands six weeks ago, is in the form of his life but when he arrived in St Andrews was still not 100% after a bout of food poisoning at the Vivendi Trophy, and needed a combination of rest and vitamins to get him back to fitness. “I can’t wait now for the Open at St Andrews next year,” he said.

Rory McIlroy, who claims never to have scored worse than 69 over the Old Course, closed with a birdie 3 for a 69 to maintain that record and also claim second place alongside England’s Oliver Wilson. His winnings of £253,191, moreover, have taken him past the injured Martin Kaymer into No.1 spot on the order of merit.

McIlroy was four under at the turn playing in the pro-am format with father Gerry on his 50th birthday. That would have been tournament-winning golf had it not been for Dyson. “Hats off to him and I didn’t play well enough on the back nine to have a good chance,” he said.

Kieran McManus, in partnership with Denmark’s Soren Hansen, won the team event on a total of 44 under par, the Irish 15-handicapper, son of JP, improving his professional’s score by no fewer than 36 shots. The word bandit springs to mind, but that might be churlish.