Ames struggles with putter in first round

Playing in the group behind the marquee threesome of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson, Calgary’s Stephen Ames stood on the No. 9 tee at The Olympic Club, waiting to hit his opening tee shot of the U.S. Open.

He would have to wait awhile longer.

Backwards up the fairway, into the closely mowed walking path through the rough and all the way back up the hill to the tee box trudged the lonely figure of Mickelson, driver in hand. With his first swing of the day, he had hooked his tee shot dead right into a tree, and it never came down. Did Ames see him? “Phil? Yeah, I asked if we could play through,” said Ames, making sure reporters knew he was kidding.

There was a lot of that sort of viewing from behind the luminaries, with Mickelson and Watson hitting it all over hell’s half acre, and Woods playing immaculately most of the way.

“Let’s put it this way, I only saw one person in the fairway, Tiger, and I didn’t see the other two very often,” said Ames, who had few such adventures himself, but still could do no better than four-over-par 74 on the difficult Lake Course at Olympic.

“Putting was the issue today. I was happy with the way I struck the ball. I didn’t hit any wayward ones, like I saw a few of my fellow competitors do in the front group,” he said. “It’s playing tough out there. Usually the first day it’s a little softer than that, but it’s already playing tough. The greens are firm, and very quick.”

Ames’s best moment came after his worst shot, at the 256-yard, par-four 7th, his next-to-last hole of the day, where after a long wait to play, he hit his tee shot miles right into the gallery. He made a heroic up-anddown for birdie.

With few players under par and Woods one of them, Ames was asked whether Tiger had the field’s attention.

“He’s always got everybody’s attention, no matter what he’s shooting, or how he’s swinging,” Ames said. “He’s Tiger Woods, come on. Second-best player in the history of golf, after Jack.”