IRV­ING–T&T's Stephen Ames suf­fered a now fa­mil­iar fi­nal round melt­down in Texas yes­ter­day to fin­ish tied for 48th at the US$6.7 By­ron Nel­son Cham­pi­onship. Play­ing at TPC Four Sea­sons, the 49-year-old Ames col­lapsed on the back nine with three bo­geys and a dou­ble bo­gey, to fin­ish five-over 75 and with an over­all score of one-over 281.

Twen­ty-six year-old South Ko­re­an Bae Sang­moon pro­duced a fi­nal round 69 to win the tour­na­ment by two strokes, and claim his first PGA Tour vic­to­ry. Ames, mean­while, en­ter­ing the fi­nal day 18th on the leader­board and well poised for a top 10 fin­ish, watched as his game quick­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ed. He start­ed well, pick­ing up a shot on the open­ing 458-yard par-four first and an­oth­er on the sev­enth, though he twice dropped shots to make the turn at even par. Things sud­den­ly went down­hill for the Cana­da- based golfer.

He made par on the first four holes on the back nine and then with­out warn­ing found the wa­ter on the par-14th, picked up penal­ty stroke, to come away with a dou­ble bo­gey. On the 504-yard, par-four 15th, he twice found the rough to emerge with bo­gey and though he hit the fair­way off the 16th, he missed a six-foot put to save par to plunge to four-over. He broke the night­mare run with a par on the 17th but re­sumed his slide on the 18th when he found the rough off the tee, then a green-side bunker be­fore miss­ing par.

Ames was en­ter­pris­ing in the open­ing rounds, card­ing a three-un­der 67 on Thurs­day, fol­lowed by a 68 on Fri­day, be­fore go­ing one-over in Sat­ur­day's third round. He has en­dured yet an­oth­er top­sy-turvy sea­son, miss­ing the cut in six of his 12 out­ings. (CMC)