Stephen’s initiation into golf was during his early teenage years at Pointe a Pierre, Trinidad. He had grown up playing tennis, as well as swimming competitively, but golf was starting to pull his attention more and more. He learnt the game from Victor Alexander, who can still be seen teaching under the shade of the trees on the 17th hole. Stephen’s game rapidly improved in his mid teens and in an effort to play as much as possible in tournaments, he would come up to Port of Spain to stay at his aunt on weekends so that he could play at St. Andrew’s in Moka. It was during this time that he also worked on his game with Roy Rudder, the then pro teacher at St Andrews. Stephen practiced relentlessly and by age 16 he wasn’t just the best junior by far in Trinidad, but he was emerging as one of the best national players at the senior level. He shot an amazing six under par 66 at Sandy Lane, Barbados in his debut representing Trinidad and Tobago in the Hoerman Cup in 1980, a course record at the time. It was a sign of things to come.

During the next six years Stephen had an outstanding career as an amateur, winning the Trinidad and Tobago Open at age 16 and then again when he was 22.

He had a tremendous record at the Hoerman Cup, the regional inter country tournament, helping Trinidad and Tobago to victory on 3 occasions in 1981, 1986 and 1987.

It came as no surprise that he followed his passion and choose golf as his career in 1987. It would be four years before he recorded his first professional victory outside Trinidad and Tobago when he won the Pensacola Open on the then Nike Tour in 1991. Those were years of perseverance.

In 1993 he decided to try his hand on the European Tour and made a good start there recording 5 top tens in his first season. He made the breakthrough 1994 when he won on the European Tour for the first time at the Open V33 Grand Lyon in France. His best year on that tour came in 1996 when he won the Benson and Hedges International and achieved this during extremely foul weather on the last day, the wind gusting up to 50 miles an hour.

The following year he decided to qualify for the US PGA tour where he had to earn his card through their annual qualifying school which he easily got by coming 3rd in this most rigorous test of aspiring professionals. It is worth mentioning that earlier that year he turned more than a few heads at the British Open where he came 5th.

He has been on the PGA tour every year since 1997 and it was not until 2004 that he managed to break into the top 50, though every year he got a few top ten finishes, showing that he had the game to compete at the top. Occasionally he would show streaks of brilliance like when he shot 61 at Doral’s Blue Monster in 2000. His breakthrough nearly came in 2002 at the Player’s Championship, referred to as the 5th major, one of the strongest fields in professional golf, year in year out, when you can only say he was pipped by one of the most extraordinary finishes in living memory on the PGA tour. Craig Perks had nothing short of a miraculous closing streak to win the tournament and left Stephen with 2nd place.

2004 was a great year for Stephen with a top 10 finish at the season opening SONY Open in Hawaii, tied for 6th at the Bay Hill at the end of March. The next week he tied for 13th at the Players Championship, tied for 7th at the MCI heritage at the end of April; the next week he tied for 4th at the Shell Houston Open. The week after that, he tied for 7th at the HP Classic of New Orleans; three weeks later he came third at the prestigious Bank of America Colonial, then tied for 6th at the Memorial and two weeks later carded his first top ten in a US Open.

His first PGA tour win came two weeks later on Sunday July 4th 2004 in the second oldest tournament on the PGA Tour, the Cialis Western Open, over a field which included Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh. Stephen shot 67, 73, 64, 70. Before the year closed he tied for 9th at the PGA Championship, the last of the four majors, and tied for 4th place finish at the Tour Championship. His impressive achievements in 2004 were reflected in an improved World ranking from 98th to 21st and PGA ranking from 72nd to 8th.

In 2005 he achieved three top ten finishes, tied for 6th in the MCI Heritage, tied 7th in the Bell Canadian Open, and 10th in the WGC American Express.

In 2006, he had his greatest achievement when he won THE PLAYERS Championship on the TPC Sawgrass, blowing away the strongest field in golf with a 5-under 67 in the final round to win by six shots. He finished at 14-under 274, six shots clear of two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen, posted the lowest final-round score when the scoring average was 75.378 on the second-toughest Sunday in TPC Sawgrass history.

In 2007 Stephen saved the best for last when he recorded his third PGA tour victory in the final event of the season, The Children’s Miracle Network. He added this to finishing tied for 5th at the WGC Match Play, tied for 9th at the Arnold Player Invitational and tied for 10th at the US Open.

Carrying over his top form at the end of last season Stephen started off 2008 in fine fashion, finishing 3rd at the Mercedes Championships followed by tied for 10th at the Sony Open. And he has been doing well in headline events such as the Crowne Plaza Invitational at the Colonial where he finished 4th, as well as placing 5th at the Players Championships which seems to have become his favorite tour stop. Most recently he had an outstanding tournament at the British Open where he came away tied for 7th in conditions so difficult that many of the best in the world were left in disarray.

What’s left in store for Stephen Ames? Quite a bit still you can be sure.