I really enjoyed this article about Stephen Ames and Tiger Woods. Should be a great day for golf fans.
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http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news ... e2&k=78767
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Fearless Ames square in eye of the Tiger
Cam Cole Vancouver Sun
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Stephen Ames of Canada celebrates after he birdied the 18th hole during the third round of the 89th PGA Championship golf tournament at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma August 11, 2007.
TULSA, Oaklahoma -- He took a long look at the leaderboard before he stepped up to his birdie putt, so he knew, all right.
Stephen Ames knew that if he made the delicate, sliding, downhill 15-footer that faced him on the 18th green, he would be in the final group of the 89th PGA Championship Sunday afternoon against Tiger Woods - there would be no place to hide from all the contentious history between them, and all the myth and mystique that Woods has built up around himself.
The putt trickled toward the hole, caught the right-hand lip and went in.
And if you know a little of the background - the ill-advised, off-the-cuff comments the 43-year-old Calgarian has made about Tiger's etiquette, about his waywardness off the tee - you have to give Ames this: the man is unafraid.
Why would he want to put himself through tthis? Was he really, aggressively trying to position himself in the eye of the Tiger, where so many victims have fallen before?
"I'm aggressively trying to get closer to him, that's what. He's got a three-shot lead, right? Five in front of him might not be enough, but three back is better than four," said Ames, whose closing birdie for 69 - his third straight round in the 60s - put him alone at four-under-par, three back of Woods and one ahead of Woody Austin, who bogeyed the last to miss his chance at being under the big top today.
"Did Steve make birdie at 18?" asked Austin, when the roar went up. "Well, that stinks. You'd rather be inside the arena with [Tiger] with all the commotion that goes on around him."
Indeed, it's often the group in front of Tiger that gets the worst of the circus, as fans scramble for position to see The Man.
Austin will play there with Aussie John Senden, who's a further stroke back at two-under 208, with Ernie Els the only other man in the field under par, one stroke in the red. All five shot 69s today, when the best round of the day was a 65 by Boo Weekley, who'll play with Els.
"I accomplished my goal today - to shoot under par and increase my lead," said Woods. "Only made one bogey and kept myself out of trouble most of the day. I was just trying to put myself in the middle of greens and lag-putt well, trying not to leave myself second putts."
Ames knew what Tiger had done without having seen any of his round. If Woods' game wasn't immaculate, it was the next thing to it. His ball-striking was superb, his focus flawless.
"He's relentless," said Ames. "Tiger's playing the purrfect game to win majors. He's hitting 2-iron off the tee, putting the next one on the green - and with his short game, his putting ... that's why he shoots 18-19-under at majors [read last summer at Hoylake] hitting 2-irons off the tee. Everyone else has to hit drivers. He's playing the game Jack [Nicklaus] played for years.
"He's what Jack used to be, exact same thing. Jack would walk on the tee, and everybody's knees would start to shake. I like being in the situation."
He knows he will be nervous, but so, he expects, will Tiger, trying to win his 13th major and take one more step toward Nicklaus's record 18.
"He's the greatest front-runner in history, maybe the greatest player the game has ever seen," said Ames. "I know he has that influence on people. But I'm not going to be watching what he's doing. He's probably going to play a steady game as he does when he's in the lead. He's done it 12 times. He's going to be tough to beat, but you know what? I'm going to be conscious of what I'm doing. I've gotta be me, myself. Because it's the only thing I can control."
Tiger, though, is in the driver's seat. He is 12-0 when he's led or co-led after 54 holes.
"The statistics will tell you, yes, it's over," said Els. "But as a competitor, I can't ever say that. He's unbelievably solid right now, and full of confidence, but we've all played the round of our lives, and he's got to have a couple of mistakes."
But if he weren't a golfer?
"How can I put it?" said Els. "Yeah, if I was a fan on the couch, I'd be putting my house on him."
Ames, too was very steady today, and when he wasn't, his scrambling ability and putting stroke bailed him out. He made a number of very solid pars from the six-foot range, and on the spiky afternoon greens, that was no mean feat.
But there will be no alibis this afternoon, when all eyes will be on the last group, looking for signs of animosity, of tension, of Tiger's fearsome presence taking its toll on another unlucky playing partner.
Scott Verplank, who played with Woods today, lost to him by five strokes and sank from four-under to even par.
He had said, before the round, only half-jokingly: "I hope he doesn't mistake me for Rory Sabbatini."
A week ago, using as fuel a months-old comment Sabbatini made about Tiger being "beatable," Woods dusted the South African by nine shots in the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational.
The whole golf world remembers what Tiger's response was when Ames was quoted as saying, before they met at the Accenture Match Play in 2006: "Anything can happen, especially where he's hitting the ball." Woods won their match 9-and-8.
Ames has long protested that he intended no slight with the remark - and only meant to say that it was a tribute to Tiger's brilliance that he made pars from places that lesser mortals would have made double-bogeys - but these things take on a life of their own. And Tiger's memory is elephantine.
"That's in the past, as far as I'm concerned," Ames said today, bristling when the topic was dredged up again. "I have no [sense of] revenge against him whatsoever. He's a better player than all of us, all 250,000 of us that play the game."
"We all know Stephen is a person who likes to speak his mind," said Woods. "He's opinionated, and I think he's very honest. When he's asked a question, he answers it honestly and I think that's what he did there - and it is what it is."
Anyway, Ames, said, he and Woods patched things up later that spring at Augusta, after Ames won the Players Championship.
Even so, don't expect a lot of friendly chit-chat today. It's not Tiger's way, and Ames probably wouldn't be his choice for a chin-wag partner, in any case.
It is Tiger's championship to win, and Stephen Ames' job to survive.
If he stays right where he is, he could be on the Presidents Cup team next month, on points.
"I've put myself in a position to make Mr. Player's job a lot easier," he said.
The torture test starts at 2 p.m. central time.
Stand well back.
