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BELL CANADIAN OPEN

September 7, 2005

Stephen Ames

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA

THE MODERATOR: Stephen Ames joins us, Stephen is making his seventh appearance at the Bell Canadian Open. His best finish at the Bell Canadian Open was tied for 13th in 1998. Stephen won his first PGA TOUR event at the Cialis Western Open in 2004, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, became a Canadian citizen in 2003.

Q. (Inaudible.)

STEPHEN AMES: Better. This is actually going to be her first week handling the boys, should I say, would you tell me there. At this stage right now, she does her daily chores in the morning, which is basically getting the kids off to school, cleaning up the house after they have left, and by lunchtime, she's having a nap because she's tired from just doing that. But she's getting there. She's not far off.

Q. Will she be coming down?

STEPHEN AMES: She's coming down over the weekend, yeah. Should be exciting, yeah.

Q. I know you were very outspoken about the Deutsche Bank having moved, you said it was just very unfair at the date. And I know you're going to laugh at this question, but did it give you anymore feeling of pride in the Canadian Open because you seem to be very angry with what the Tour had done?

STEPHEN AMES: You know what, we've got so many foreign players playing the Tour now, Canada, Australia, I think it's fair that we basically share the wealth among everybody else rather than just thinking Americans all the time. I'm not beating them up anything like that, but I just think that in some respect, the Canadian Open is probably, what, the fifth oldest event that's on TOUR? Sorry, it's even higher; it's the third oldest event on Tour, and almost feels like we've been kicked back to secondary kind of event unfortunately. I wish Tim would look at a little bit harder at that aspect of it, and also probably give us a better date where we can move it around a little bit more in the country.

Q. What are your thoughts on a potential shortened PGA season?

STEPHEN AMES: I have no recollection of that. That's all talk. (Laughing). There are a lot of things that are in the cookie jar, should I say, for what's going to happen. We might actually have two events in China. There are so many aspects of the way they are trying to make The Fall Finish a better finish. We don't know which one they are going to go for and that's a political issue at this stage right now. That's for the boss to decide, what's best for the PGA TOUR.

Q. How was the course today, what kind of scores do you think it's going to take to win this tournament?

STEPHEN AMES: Let's put it this way, I'll take level par right now. End of the week, I think it will be pretty good. I wouldn't be far off by saying it's definitely going to be single figure, without a doubt, winning the event. How many, I would be surprised if it gets to 8 or 9, if it gets that.

I thought Hamilton was a tough test. This is probably three, maybe four shots tougher than Hamilton. As we know obviously a lot of the holes have gone from par 5s to par 4s. We have to hit the drivers. We are on the West Coast where the air is a little heavier here. The ball is not traveling as far in the morning. It's a good test, it's a very good test I think. It's fantastic.

Q. You probably haven't had the year you wanted following up on winning here last year, can you give us a quick analysis of your game as we go into the Canadian Open?

STEPHEN AMES: I think it's pretty close to what it was last year. Right now the biggest thing obviously has been mental for me, and going through the last couple of weeks, PGA, NEC, I started to play really well there. I've had two weeks off and then starting back here again, I've only played I played twice when I was home over those two weeks and I've come back out, yesterday was a bit shaky. Today started off with nine holes and it was a bit shaky because I felt back mentally into my hold habits. I've got my psychologist out here with me this week, after the first nine it was a completely different situation in golf again. I found out which way to go now. I hit the ball flute fly on the second nine, didn't make any putts but I played really well.

I'm looking forward to this wreak week, not just the fact it's the Canadian Open but the challenge of getting back in and getting in contention again.

Q. What type of player does this course favor?

STEPHEN AMES: The guy who hits the straightest and hits the most greens. I think that's typical. I don't think there's going to be a big benefit on hitting it the furthest. He's probably only going to benefit on the longer holes that changed from par 5s to par 4s, but most definitely the one that hits the fairways and greens for sure.

Q. Can you talk about the par 3s out here, they look fairly straightforward as you stand on the tee, there is not a whole lot between you and the hole, but I'm guessing that par will probably be a pretty good score on them.

STEPHEN AMES: It's funny, I played with Rod Black (ph), Bob Weeks (ph) and Jimmy Nelford (ph) and we're talking about how golf courses are being designed today. It's funny, you look at the four par 3s that they have out here, we are only hitting the longest one was the eighth, which is 210 and it was all the way in the back today. So I hit a little rescue in there about a couple of inches. The other holes were 6 irons, 5 irons and a little 8 irons on 17 there. They are so simple looking, but yet they are exceptionally dangerous, especially the 17th with that right side where it feeds off and goes off on the right there. Great design of a golf course. You look at it, so simple how they designed it, the green slopes left to right and there's a trap left and drop off on the right. Hard to design a golf hole like that. Overall the toughest holes on the golf course are the par 3s.

Q. You said you would take level par on Sunday afternoon; take your chances, fairways and greens the order of the day?

STEPHEN AMES: Yeah.

Q. So which are the slam dunk birdie holes on this golf course, are there any?

STEPHEN AMES: There are no s slam dunks. For the bigger hitters probably the two par 5s. 15, a few guys might get it there. The one on the front nine, I got up there yesterday in the practice round when he was downwind. You have to remember, too, we're playing on the coast and the wind starts to pick up here, and it's going to be tough. It's going to be really tough.

Q. For a few years now, this is a Canadian kind of question, you're getting used to being one of us and everything, Mike's been the face of Canadian golf for a few years, and this is changing; yourself and some of the kids coming up, can you just speak to how this might affect him, how it is changing and how, whether you see yourself and some of the other kids maybe jumping in and sharing that space with him?

STEPHEN AMES: Well, yeah, Mike, I believe he's the only Canadian that's won a major, isn't he? A lot of pressure has been added onto him that way. He's definitely by far probably the best Canadian golfer that's come out of Canada. Obviously because of the fact that he's won a major; in retrospect, there's been a lot of added pressure.

I think he's handling it very well. IMG has done a good job with that, taking care of his time and stuff with that. Overall I think it's nice to see that we have other good Canadian golfers, younger golfers that are coming up, and falling in his steps and everybody else's steps that have played the Canadian Tour or the PGA TOUR that were Canadian. I think overall, it's probably been a shape where maybe the others should be recognized other than just Mike. In retrospect, also, they should be trying to give back as much as they can to the game of golf in Canada.

End of FastScripts.

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