Stephen Ames wins first PGA Tour Champions title

DULUTH, Ga. (AP) — Stephen Ames hadn’t won a tournament in eight years, so he knew it was critical to keep his cool.

“My biggest goal this week was to control my anxiety and my emotions and my breathing, which is something I worked on pretty hard this week,” he said. “That calmed me down a lot.”

Ames won the Mitsubishi Electric Classic on Sunday for his first PGA Tour Champions title, easily holding off Bernhard Langer at TPC Sugarloaf.

The 52-year-old Ames, a naturalized Canadian citizen from Trinidad, closed with a 6-under 66 for a four-stroke victory over Langer.

Ames opened with rounds of 67 and 68 to take a one-stroke lead over five players into the final round.

Making his 49th senior start, Ames had six birdies in his bogey-free round to finish at 15-under 201.

He won for the first time since taking the 2009 Children’s Miracle Network Classic for the last of his four PGA Tour titles.

“I felt very much in control of my tempo and everything else,” Ames said. “It was nice to be in that situation and play the way I did today.”

Ames is the third Canadian to win on the 50-andover tour and the 11th player to win on the PGA Tour Champions, PGA Tour and Web.com Tour.

Langer, a 30-time winner on the tour, had a 65 to jump from a tie for 21st. Fred Funk (66), David Frost (68) and Brandt Jobe (70) tied for third at 10 under, and 2016 winner Woody Austin (68) and Kevin Sutherland (71) followed at 9 under.

Langer’s tour-record streak of par or better rounds at 36 ended Saturday with a 73.

“It was a sad way to finish yesterday, especially bogeying 18 was bad,” Langer said. “But I didn’t think I hit a bad tee shot and ended up with a horrible lie. I couldn’t even extract it out of the rough and ended up making 6, so that was pretty poor. I just never made a putt yesterday.”

Ames did himself an early favor to create some breathing room, chipping in on the par-4 seventh. It was his second straight birdie and fourth on the front nine.