I caught up with Stephen Ames for the first time since last year’s Canadian Open for a feature I was working on and also got him to talk about missing the Players Championship for the first time since he won it in 2006. Ames didn’t qualify this year and his exemption into the tournament has run out. Anyway, he wasn’t bothered by staying home in Calgary.
“No big deal,” was his response when I asked whether he was bothered by missing the tournament.
Ames went on to say it was nice to have won but he doesn’t separate bigger tournaments from less significant ones because it doesn’t help his mental approach to each event. He said every win was significant, regardless of where it occurs. It was an interesting perspective — and one that doesn’t surprise me coming from Ames, who is known for speaking his mind.
Ames’ remarks became the focus of this week’s Sympatico column:
With the tournament with what is arguably golf’s strongest field kicking off this week in Florida, Stephen Ames is hanging out at his Calgary home, away from the glare of the cameras and probing questions from the media.
Ames, who won the Players Championship in dramatic fashion in 2006, isn’t too bothered by missing the event. He had an exemption to play for five years after winning, but spotty finishes this year means Ames isn’t in the field or paying much attention.
“It is just another golf tournament,” he says.
It is hard to imagine Ames, who has become known for his honest, unfiltered commentary, isn’t bothered by missing the Players. It was at Ponte Vedra’s TPC at Sawgrass that Ames played what might be the best round of his long career. On a breezy Sunday he hit beautiful irons throughout the round to card a 5-under 67 and win handily. Many thought it was one of the best ball striking rounds in recent memory and was surely the biggest win for Ames won in a career that includes three other victories and more than $19-million in earnings.
The full column can be found here.
I did not realize Ames was known for his honest unfiltered commentary. He has had a fine career, but the TPC is not just another tourney!
Oh, yes it is! Just another tournament! Not that it doesn’t draw the top players in the world. It usually does. But – it is played on the same course every year (the Masters is something totally different), the closing holes are the same every year, the course is in the the same condition every year, but the riskreward factors and the difficulty are just not there as they are in a major. The Players is the premier event of the PGA Tour , the Tour has pumped it up so much, trying to hang on to their tour as being the only one that counts. When they don’t need it, there are a host of brilliant young American players that, in our globalized world, should be playing around the world. What is wrong with playing the BMW in England?
And no doubt you have noticed that Stephen has qualified for the (British) Open?