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CANADIAN OPEN

July 29, 2007

Stephen Ames

MARKHAM, ONTARIO

Q. Sum up the past four days?
STEPHEN AMES: Beautiful weather.

Q. The golf?
STEPHEN AMES: My golf was average. Hit the ball nicely coming in from the British Open. Obviously a lot of it carried on from the second round when I missed the cut, but a lot of positive things for me it week. I struck the ball nicely the last few days, just couldn't make anything unfortunately. That's just the nature of the game.

Q. Are you happy walking away with the sense that it's a testament to come back and play better as the weekend after the travel?
STEPHEN AMES: No testament there. That's why we work out, go to the gym.
The RCGA made it easier by putting us on the plane. Obviously something that they had to contend with with the date that we have the Canadian Open. Like I said before, they stepped in the right direction by throwing the plane on to help the situation with us and getting us here somehow on Monday morning and having the whole day Monday to rest. It was great.

Q. But the date doesn't change for a while.
STEPHEN AMES: Not for a while. I think their focus has to be towards picking proper golf courses. I think on the whole, if you look at the guys or ask 90 percent of the guys on the PGA TOUR, their first answer towards what makes their schedule is it's always the golf course. 90 percent of us want to play the old-style kind of golf course; you've got to move your golf ball and that kind of stuff, and I think we have a few of them here in Canada that definitely fit that criteria.
I think those are the things more than anything other than -- I don't even look at the purses anymore. I look at the schedule of the golf courses that I pick and I enjoy playing, because all of the purses are matched to one another, other than the majors and World Golf Championships. I think it's the direction the RCGA has to go towards, picking some proper golf courses for everybody to enjoy.

Q. Do you think it will help moving the purse to $8 million?
STEPHEN AMES: No, I don't think it will.

Q. Is there a course out west you'd like to get involved --
STEPHEN AMES: The only one I know of out west off the top of my head is Shaughnessy.
I don't think it's a matter of being out west or out east. I think it's just a matter of finding the right golf course to where everybody will finish just like we did the year, I think it was Tway won at Hamilton the first year. Everybody was talking about it, raving about it; 8-under par won. Those are the kind of golf courses that professional golfers, we enjoy playing, and enjoy coming back to play every year.

Q. Is it fair to say this wasn't one of them?
STEPHEN AMES: Yeah, I would have to say so unfortunately.

Q. What is it about this golf course --
STEPHEN AMES: It's difficult. It wasn't -- at the beginning it wasn't designed for a major championship or a National Championship altogether. And condition-wise everything and else, it hosted the event wonderfully.
But other than the fact that 90 percent -- well, all of us basically didn't enjoy the fact of what it had to offer, just because of the nature of the golf course, the way it's designed.
But no offense to Doug or even to Angus Klein, but just what they were asked to do four or five years ago after the golf course was designed. It's like, whoa, wait a minute, you've missed the picture here, haven't you. So that's the unfortunate thing about it.
Like I said it's a different approach that the RCGA have to take, which I think hopefully Scott Simmons is hopefully going to adapt and go towards that direction by finding five or six really good golf courses that all of us enjoy playing and being at, and you can boost the Canadian Open back to what it used to be.

Q. Do you think next year at Glen Abbey will carry some sway with players?
STEPHEN AMES: Yes and no. Yes and no. It's difficult, you know. The Abbey over the years has done better condition-wise. They have changed a couple of things here and there. But I think it's gone through its period of time. It was a great golf course in time, but now it's not quite there it used to be.

Q. Were the greens better than yesterday?
STEPHEN AMES: Yeah, I think the setup of the golf course was great today. Besides my kick on 18. (Laughter).

Q. Do you think the guys on TOUR will be open to some sort of rule where you have to play in a tournament once every four years?
STEPHEN AMES: We do have that rule.

Q. Tiger hasn't been here in --
STEPHEN AMES: I think -- it's a difficult, his situation, if you think about it, it is. I think on the whole, we do have a rule where we have to play once every five years. But there's certain events you're not going to get to. I think the last time he played was 2000, if I'm correct, and I think he was trying to add into the record book for winning U.S. Open, British Open, Canadian Open, and Trevino was the only other person to do that, if I'm correct. He's played a couple of years. You can't critique him on that.

Q. What would you suggest?
STEPHEN AMES: I don't think it's a rule -- I don't know if it's a rule, but I think you get docked one retirement fund which is like 3,500, 4,000 bucks.

Q. That buys a coke --
STEPHEN AMES: Today's standards, it is. As I said, the purse of the events don't really matter. The amount of money that we're playing for in each event basically the main criteria is always going to be the golf course without a doubt.

Q. Your Bell Canadian week, how would you assess?
STEPHEN AMES: I don't know the answer -- yes and no. I mean, I played well. I played well this week, more consistently. Not as well as I liked to but I played consistently which is good.

Q. Have you ever heard of anybody making three deuces and an ace on a hole, like Furyk did?
STEPHEN AMES: Three deuces and an ace? Oh, is that right? Good for him. Hope he continues and depends his title.

End of FastScripts

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