Q. You seem to feel pretty comfortable here. A few years ago you were maybe in a position to win this thing and then you missed your cab or something?
STEPHEN AMES: Yeah, I pulled a muscle in my back and that was it. I couldn't swing. My neck was locked up and I couldn't make a swing. I tried. Came out and tried and I had to withdraw, unfortunately. But that's part of it.
It was the beginning of the year for me. I think it was my second event, and two years ago, the physical aspect of it in golf was not there for me. And that's something that I've been doing now for about almost a year and a half now. The regimen of lifting of the weights and exercising, I've been injury-free for the last year and a half.
Q. What prompted you to do that, because everybody else was doing it?
STEPHEN AMES: I was starting to feel it because I'm not young, I'm 38, getting on in age. Two kids running around, and they are the ones who are telling me that every time I lifted them, I was feeling it in my back. I was like, "No, I can't do that and play golf." So I decided it was time.
I've always wanted to do it. I didn't think I had the drive, maybe, in that aspect to try it and do it. I tried it one week with Chris and off I went, I love it now.
Q. You say putting. These greens here are pretty good, by almost everybody's standards. Do you come here thinking you are going to make putts or is there in the back of your mind, "I'm still working on things"?
STEPHEN AMES: Everybody comes here thinking it's going to be a putting competition, which basically it ends up being. The golf courses are so short, one. Two, the greens are absolutely perfect. The weather is perfect. You know you're going to have to make putts.
It wasn't something that I was thinking of. It was just something that I was putting well from the week before and just continued putting well today. As the week -- during the week, practice rounds and everything else, I was putting well there, as well. So it's continued and it's been nice for me.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could go over your score card.
STEPHEN AMES: Sure. Second hole, I hit driver down the middle. It was 3-iron just over the back edge, chipped and putted from three feet, 3 1/2 feet.
The fourth, it was 3-wood, wedge, about five feet and made that.
The sixth, I hit my ball in the trap on the right. 3-iron out. Sand wedge about four feet and made that.
8, it was 3-wood, sand wedge about two and a half feet.
10, I was about 25 feet from the hole and made that.
11, laid up just short of the green and chipped it up about two feet and made that.
15, the par 3, I went down the hill. I hit 8-iron about pin-high, just past pin-high and left it in the fringe about 18 feet and made that going up the hill there.
16, I hit 3-wood, wedge about 35 feet. Made that.
These are the things, putts from last year that I can recall, and I think I made maybe one or two 35-footers in a month. So the biggest thing has been that, has helped me and my pace has been really good.
18, I hit driver, 2-iron to the middle of the green from about 35 feet and 2-putted for birdie.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You didn't make any mistakes, but probably just as important nine birdies, you didn't make any mistakes and no bogeys.
STEPHEN AMES: No bogeys. Good thing for me, the biggest change for me is the fact that I've left Callaway. I think a lot of you noticed I was Callaway for 11 years and I've gone Nike. It was a big shock, especially coming out of the rough, the difference in the height and the flight that I was getting, more of a blade up. It was easier for me to get the ball airborne out of the rough and have a chance of stopping the ball on the green.
This week, especially today, the driving was not radical, all over the world, but it just missed the fringe on the edge, in the first cut all day, actually. And that was the biggest change, coming out of the rough, the first cut with those clubs made a big difference for me.
I'm playing the Nike ball, as well.
End of FastScripts....
