Ames collects $650,000 on final hole

Stephen Ames chuckled about his mostly mediocre 18 holes of golf. He can laugh all the way to the bank.

With $650,000 at stake on No. 18, Ames coolly knocked his 7-foot birdie putt into the center of the cup Sunday at Indian Wells, Calif., to win the Skins Game. The only other hole he won was the first, a day earlier.

“That’s the nature of the Skins Game,” Ames said, his smile still as wide at it was when his rich putt dropped. “It’s always been the way you play at the Skins Game.

“You kind of let the other guys beat themselves up and then you sneak in there when you need to.”

Taking the title for the second year in a row, Ames finished with nine skins and $675,000 of the $1 million purse.

Five-time champion Fred Couples, playing in the 25-year-old tournament for the 14th time, also won nine skins, pocketing $325,000 to push his career earnings in the made-for-TV event to more than $4.2 million.

“Somebody’s going to birdie the 18th hole, probably, and Stephen did it to win a big, big, big skin,” Couples said. “If you win the right holes, you win money.”

Masters champion Zach Johnson and Brett Wetterich, making their Skins Game debuts, were shut out.

“I certainly enjoyed the experience and playing with these three guys,” Johnson said. “It’s a very unique event. It’s nothing like I’ve ever been familiar with.”

Said Wetterich: “I just feel bad for the charity I was trying to play for. I feel worse about that than anything else.”

Each player donates 20 percent of his winnings to a charity of his choice.

Ames’ donation will go to the Ames Foundation, and Couples’ to victims of the wildfires in California.

World Cup

Colin Montgomerie and Marc Warren gave Scotland its first victory in the World Cup, defeating Americans Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum with a par on the third hole of a playoff at Shenzhen, China.

The victory at the Mission Hills Golf Club made up for Scotland’s loss last year in Barbados on the first hole of a playoff with Germany’s Bernhard Langer and Marcel Siem.

Montgomerie’s tap-in for par on the third extra hole won as Weekley missed a 15-foot attempt to save par.