Ames equals world all-time golf high

LONDON: Trinidad and Tobago’s international golf star Stephen Ames has matched his all-time personal best 17th in the world rankings. In the latest ratings released on Monday, Ames is up three places from the 20th position he occupied last week and returns to the spot he held briefly in July after he had registered his maiden US PGA Tour win at the Western Open in Illinois.

Competing against some of the world’s best players at last weekend’s Target World Challenge at the Sherwood Country Club in California, Ames tied for 15th place as former world number one Tiger Woods emerged champion and current world number one Vijay Singh placed eighth. Ames, who became the first Caribbean player to qualify for the US PGA Tour when he got his card in 1997, has had a remarkable season of 11 top-10 finishes.

He also has 16 top-25 places in 27 tournament appearances and remains eighth on the money list with US$3.30 million. The money leaders are Singh, with a record US$10.90 million, followed by South African Ernie Els (US$5.787m), American Phil Mickelson (US$5.784) and Woods (US$5.36m).

Latest golf rankings (previous week’s ranking in brackets):
1. (1) Vijay Singh (Fiji); 2. (2) Tiger Woods (USA); 3. (3) Ernie Els (South Africa); 4. (4) Retief Goosen (South Africa); 5. (5) Phil Mickelson (USA); 6. (6) Padraig Harrington (Ireland); 7. (7) Davis Love III (USA); 8. (8) Mike Weir (Canada); 9. (9) Sergio Garcia (Spain); 10. (10) Stewart Cink (USA); 11. (11) Adam Scott (Australia); 12. (12) Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spain); 13. (13) Stuart Appleby (Australia); 14. (14) Darren Clarke (Britain); 15. (15) Chris DiMarco (USA); 16. (16) Todd Hamilton (USA); 17. (20) Stephen Ames (T&T); 18. (19) Chad Campbell (USA); 19. (18) Kenny Perry (USA); 20. (21) David Toms (USA).    (CMC)