Ames climbs up world golf rankings

NEW YORK: On the back of his fifth place finish at last weekend’s Greensboro Classic in North Carolina, Trinidad and Tobago’s Stephen Ames has jumped nine places up the world golf rankings to 103rd.

Ames finished with a 13-under-275 total at the Forest Oaks Country Club — for his third top-10 placing in the 2003 PGA Tour season — and climbed from the world rating of 112th he held last week. American Tiger Woods retains the number one spot ahead of South Africa’s Ernie Els, with Fiji’s Vijay Singh lying third. Ames collected US$142,392 for his fifth place finish at Greensboro, lifting his year-to-date earnings to US$865,159 — positioning him 78th on the money list, being led by Woods at US$6.2 million, and Singh (US$6.1). The 39-year-old Ames spent most of the past couple of seasons in the top 100 but his inconsistent form this year dropped him out of the first hundred group.

His effort at Greensboro added to his eighth place at the Bob Hope Classic in February and 10th at the Bay Hill Invitational the following month as top-10 finishes this year. Ames became the first Caribbean player ever to achieve PGA Tour status when he qualified in 1997. His biggest achievement so far on the tour came at The Players Championship last year when he placed second to Craig Perks and collected a whopping runner-up prize of US$648,000. Before moving to the PGA Tour, Ames played four years on the European circuit where he won the 1994 Open V33 tournament and the 1996 Benson and Hedges International Open.