Wednesday, Apr 20, 2005 Email this to a friend
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Ames wants to give back to kids in Canada, Trinidad
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Golfer Stephen Ames. (Files)
(CP) - His passport says he is now a Canadian, but golfer Stephen Ames has not forgotten his roots.
Ames, who lives in Calgary, is in the process of setting up a foundation to help develop golf talent in his native Trinidad. He's also established the Stephen Ames Cup, a three-day competition this July in Toronto, which will see eight of Canada's best junior golfers compete in a Ryder Cup format against a team from Trinidad & Tobago.
"I think it's a way of giving back," Ames, 40, said during a conference call Wednesday promoting this year's $360,000 Telus Skins Game in Whistler, B.C.
"I enjoy helping the kids as much as I can. I guess being a dad, but also being a person that always enjoyed teaching as well as playing golf, that's my way of giving back."
Ames, who won his first PGA Tour event last season and collected over $3 million US in earnings, was born in San Fernando, Trinidad. He received his Canadian citizenship in December 2003.
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He will be the Canadian content at this year's Skins Games, teeing it up along with golf legend Jack Nicklaus, Vijay Singh and John Daly in the July 4-5 event.
The competition will be played on the Nicklaus North Golf Course which Nicklaus helped design. It will also be held just one week before Nicklaus plays in his final British Open at St. Andrews.
Ames laughed when asked if he will have any nerves playing beside the Golden Bear.
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"None at all," he said from Houston, where he will play in this week's Shell Houston Open. "I'm going to take as much as I can out of it, talking to him and needling his brain a bit, how to go about playing the way he did for all those years."
Ames said he's looking forward to the more relaxed atmosphere of a Skins Games.
"Jack and I are probably going to be the straighter hitters and probably the two shortest ones, compared to Vijay and John," he said. "The thing about it is you can have fun with it.
"I think there is going to be more chatter. Vijay and I get along very well. We're going to have fun with that."
It has taken Ames years to develop his game to the point where he can rub shoulders with the likes of Nicklaus and Singh.
He hopes to use his foundation to help promote golf in his homeland and hone the skills of young players. One of his goals is building a golf course.
"Being from Trinidad, which is recognized as a Third World Country, we don't have the facilities like we do in the States or Canada," said the father of two sons. "I see a lot of kids that have the same ability, if not more, than I did at that age.
"By maybe building a golf course in Trinidad, it gives those who normally don't have the opportunity of playing golf at all the opportunity to at least being introduced to the game. There could be another Tiger Woods or Vijay Singh come out of there."
The Stephen Ames Cup will attract young golfers from across Canada, plus players from Trinidad and Tobago.
"It's giving them an opportunity of playing golf away from home," he said. "It gets them familiar with different course conditions and how to travel and stuff like that."
So far this year Ames has won just under $400,000 US and his best finish is a sixth-place tie at the MCI Heritage.
He expects his game will return to the same form of last year that saw him making 21 cuts in 27 tournaments and resulted in 11 top-10 finishes.
"The year is long," Ames said. "There is a lot of golf to go.
"All I have to do is be patient and wait for it to happen and it will."
