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Canada's Ames wins Players Championship, plans to skip Masters:Posted By: Martha Buffett PONTE VEDRA BEACH, United States (AFP) - Canada's Stephen Ames fired a stunning 67 here to win the PGA Players Championship then pulled another shocker by saying he will skip the Masters for a family vacation.Ames went five-under par, the low score of the final round, to defeat South African runner-up Retief Goosen by six strokes and capture the biggest victory of his career with a 72-hole total of 14-under par 274. "It almost felt like a walk in the park, the way I hit the ball. It was very enjoyable," Ames said. Trinidad-born Ames, the 2002 Players runner-up, took a 1.44 million-dollar top prize, a five-year US PGA Tour exemption, a spot in the next three Masters and British Opens as well as berths in the 2006 US Open and PGA Championship. But Ames, 41, said he plans to spend the next two weeks on a planned vacation with his wife Jodi and sons Justin and Ryan at Disney World rather than play at Augusta, where he finished 45th last year in his Masters debut. "I have no plans of playing Augusta," Ames said. "Basically it wasn't on the schedule and my kids are on spring break right now and we had plans to go somewhere else. "My priorities have always been family first and if it comes down to that, it's probably going to be a two-week vacation." Ames, who was one stroke off Steve Elkington's 1997 tournament record, has helped his wife in her fight with lung cancer for nearly a year. "She's doing excellent now (but) it was a difficult year," Ames said. Americans Jim Furyk and Pat Perez, Sweden's Henrik Stenson and Colombia's Camilo Villegas shared third on 283, one stroke ahead of Spain's Jose Maria Olazabal at the eight million-dollar event. Spain's Sergio Garcia and Fiji's Vijay Singh, who each began Sunday a stroke behind Ames, fired 77s to stand on 285 with South African Ernie Els, Swede Carl Pettersson and Americans Bo Van Pelt, John Rollins and Vaughn Taylor. Ames was eight-strokes below the final-round scoring average of 75, the second-highest scoring average in any round in the 25-year history of the event at Sawgrass. Ames thrived when golf's toughest field of rivals faded. "This is big," Ames said. "I beat the top players in the world. I put myself in another gear and another place this week that I've felt a couple of times in my career, but not for four days." Ames took a double bogey at the 10th to erase the two birdies he made on the front nine, blaming mud on his ball on his second shot. But Ames birdied the par-5 11th, par-3 13th and par-4 15th before making an eagle at the par-5 16th to end all doubts about victory and worries about missing majors or US tour events for a while. "I get to relax a little more now, not worry about getting into the majors so much," Ames said. "I guess it's a notch in my belt now which is a wonderful feeling." Goosen moved up the leaderboard with a final-round 69 but took bogeys at 13 and 15 and would have needed a collapse from Ames that never happened. "It was pretty close at one stage, but he ran away with it at the end," Goosen said. "We all probably thought 9-under would be a good score and he's 14-under. I'm disappointed it wasn't a bit closer but I had my chances." js06 Courtesy Of: Yahoo! News The information reported above is property of Yahoo! inc. and reprinted or modified with legitimate permission. We thank Yahoo! inc. for the kind cooperation with us and other shareholders. |
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