Ames, '06 PLAYERS Champion, happy with finish

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Stephen Ames, who won THE PLAYERS in 2006 and finished second in 2002, gave it a run Sunday afternoon, but came up short.

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Stephen Ames, 2006 PLAYERS Champion, put up a good fight on Sunday.

Ames birdied the 15th to get to 2 under for the tournament, but couldn't hang on and post the number. He doubled-bogeyed the 18th for the second consecutive day to finish at even-par 288.

"I shot level par and I had two double bogeys,'' Ames said. "I'm not going to complain about that at all. It was a good day, I moved up the leaderboard, and that's what you try to achieve at the end of the week, moving up and getting closer to No. 1.''

Would 2 under have made the players on the course -- with the leaders having at least two hours to play at the time -- think?

"It might, you never know, though,'' Ames said. "If Paul doesn't do anything silly coming in, I think he'll hold onto it. The only difficult holes coming in were probably 14 for him overall, 14 will be tough, and then of course 17 and 18, which that just depends on how much you trust yourself and you trust your golf swing coming in.''

The 18th is playing very tough. At one point, four of six players (three groups) double bogeyed the hole -- Adam Scott, Ames, Davis Love III and Fredrik Jacobson.

Ames' take? "It's a tough hole,'' he said. "The chip really surprised me. I thought it would grab a little bit and it never did. I think that green being a little more exposed, it's probably a little bit more dried out than all the others. That's the nature of the game. I'm quite happy with my result. Any time you play well and finish top 10 in this event you've played well, considering the quality of the field, the top 40, top 50 in the world playing, I'm quite happy with the result.''

And, yes, he'll take it.

"I'll take that at San Diego (the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines) right now,'' he said, laughing. "Do you think I have a chance? "