PALM HABOUR–T&T's Stephen Ames was eye­ing a run at the US$5.5 mil­lion Tam­pa Bay Cham­pi­onship af­ter a third round 69 left him just five shots adrift of the lead head­ing in­to to­day's fi­nal round.The Cana­da-based Ames, who has strug­gled all sea­son, went two-un­der yes­ter­day to fin­ish the day tied for 21st on the leader­board at one-un­der 212.

Amer­i­cans Kevin Streel­man and Justin Leonard, along with South African George Co­et­zee share the club­house lead at six-un­der, with a four-man group head­ed by vet­er­an Amer­i­can Jim Furyk an­oth­er stroke back.Play­ing on the Cop­per­head Course at In­nis­brook Re­sort, Ames strug­gled over the first nine with three bo­geys and on­ly a sin­gle birdie, to make the turn at two-over.

His start was a rough one. He found the left side fair­way bunker off the tee on the 560-yard, par-five first and then missed a four-foot putt to save par.He then bo­geyed the fifth, an­oth­er long par-five, af­ter miss­ing a key 14-foot­er and de­spite pick­ing up a shot on the sev­enth, he floun­dered again on the eighth when he found the green side bunker off the short par-three.

How­ev­er, he sparked on the back nine with four birdies to fin­ish his out­ing strong­ly. On the 445-yard, par-four first, he found the mid­dle of the fair­way off the tee be­fore knock­ing down a nine-foot­er for birdie. He fol­lowed up on the tricky par-four 12th when he safe­ly nav­i­gat­ed the wa­ter­cours­es to lay up for a near 19-foot birdie putt.

Ad­di­tion­al birdies on the 15th and 18th saw Ames pick up mo­men­tum to­wards the end.On Fri­day, Ames shot an even-par 71 to fol­low up his first round 72, to avoid the cut set at two-over and break a wor­ry­ing se­quence of missed cuts that had seen him elim­i­nat­ed ear­ly in four of his last five out­ings.Ames tees off to­day at 12:01 pm and will play along­side Amer­i­can Robert Streb. (CMC)