Play­ing in the fi­nal group to­geth­er, Stephen Ames stared down Charles Schwab Cup leader Steve Strick­er to win the Prin­ci­pal Char­i­ty Clas­sic at Wakon­da Golf Club in Des Moines, Iowa, USA for the sec­ond time on Sun­day.

It al­so was the third vic­to­ry of the year for Ames, ty­ing Strick­er for the most on PGA TOUR Cham­pi­ons in 2023.

Ames had a one-stroke lead un­til a three-putt at No. 14 gave him his first bo­gey of the tour­na­ment. Strick­er was able to tie him at 16 un­der, and by the time they reached the 16th hole, they had been joined at 16 un­der by Jer­ry Kel­ly and Tim Petro­vic.

Ames calm­ly stepped to the tee at the par-3 17th and stuck his tee shot to 6 feet. Strick­er, who went the en­tire week with­out a bo­gey, just missed the green left and rolled his chip by the hole. Ames buried his birdie putt for what proved to be the fi­nal mar­gin when Strick­er couldn’t birdie the short, par-4 18th.

“It was a bat­tle to­day, there’s no doubt about that,” Ames said. “Steve, ob­vi­ous­ly the way he’s played this year al­ready tells you it was go­ing to be a good bat­tle and the fact that I end­ed up on top, which is more ful­fill­ing than any­thing else right now.”

Kel­ly fired a fi­nal-round 65 to tie Strick­er for sec­ond. Petro­vic bo­geyed 18 to fall back to 15 un­der, in a tie for fourth with Rod Pam­pling. Pam­pling closed with a 66, most­ly be­cause of a siz­zling 30 on the in­ward nine.

Ames, 59, is en­joy­ing the best sea­son of his Cham­pi­ons Tour ca­reer. Be­fore this year, he had won on­ly twice, the 2017 Mit­subishi Elec­tric Clas­sic and the 2021 Prin­ci­pal Char­i­ty Clas­sic. He won the Mit­subishi Elec­tric Clas­sic again this year, too, as well as the Tro­phy Has­san II.

“The main thing is that I’ve been do­ing the same thing that I was do­ing all of last year,” Ames said. “Last year I had no wins and fin­ished eighth (on the Charles Schwab Cup). This year I’ve come out and got three (wins) un­der my belt al­ready. So now I’m con­tem­plat­ing look­ing at my sched­ule think­ing I can take a cou­ple weeks off here and there, so we’ll see what hap­pens.

“At the stage right now, it’s the same thing that I was do­ing last year (that) I’m do­ing this year. Maybe the put­ter is a lit­tle warmer at times and that’s prob­a­bly why I’m win­ning.”

No one has been on par with Strick­er this year. The Prin­ci­pal Char­i­ty Clas­sic marked his 10th start. His worst fin­ish has been a T8. He counts the year’s first two ma­jors among his three wins, and this week marked his fourth run­ner-up fin­ish.

But over the past five events, Ames has been Strick­er’s clos­est pur­suer. He was T9 at the In­sper­i­ty In­vi­ta­tion­al to Strick­er’s so­lo sec­ond, won the Mit­subishi Elec­tric Clas­sic where Strick­er fin­ished T5, fin­ished T11 at the Re­gions Tra­di­tion and placed T15 at the KitchenAid Se­nior PGA Cham­pi­onship.

Ames is the third play­er to win the Prin­ci­pal Char­i­ty Clas­sic at least twice, join­ing Bob Gilder and Jay Haas.

(PGA­TOUR)