Last Call in Orlando

By Jim Moriarty
Photo: Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP November 9, 2007

Stephen Ames, who has retooled his golf swing to take a load off his aching back, out-dueled Tim Clark and Scott Verplank to win the Children's Miracle Network Classic presented by Wal-Mart with a 17-under 271 on Walt Disney Resort's Palm and Magnolia courses. It is hard to imagine a threesome where Ames, 151st on the tour in driving distance, is the power player but there you have it. Yada, yada, yada.

Now, back to the numbers. In a year that began and ended without the World's No. 1 anywhere in sight and included tens of thousands of golf shots from Hawaii to Boston and back, a player's fate never truly comes down to one round of golf. But when it's the last round of the year, it can sure feel that way. It did for Kevin Stadler, lookalike son of Craig and the only player outside the top 125 coming into the Magic Kingdom who played his way into fully exempt status, going from 127th to 124th, and bumping Ted Purdy in the process.

"I'm more nervous now than I was on the golf course," Stadler said just outside the scoring trailer after his closing 71, watching and waiting for his wheel of fortune finally to stop spinning.

The only player who pushed his way into the top 30 was Heath Slocum, and that didn't really matter because he was already in the '08 Masters after qualifying for the Tour Championship. Jeff Gove and Robert Gamez managed to squeeze inside the top 150, which gets them to the final stage of Q school, which in turn means they have a home next year no matter what. And Vaughn Taylor remains the last automatic invite to the invitationals, staying right where he began the week, at No. 70. The to-ing and fro-ing turned out to be mostly smoke and mirrors, sweat and fears. In the end, not much changed.

Ames, who went into the last round tied with Verplank at 13 under, only came to Orlando to escape the impending cold of Calgary, Alberta, where the Trinidadian/Tobagian makes his home, and to continue working with his instructor, Sean Foley. Having altered his swing plane to save his back, Ames didn't want to just hit balls off rubber mats for four months.

At one point or another Sunday afternoon, it seemed like just about everyone had a chance to win, including guys named Tag Ridings and Bryce Molder. That particular pair turned out to be Disney characters, however, and, in both cases, a good day wasn't good enough to salvage a lousy year. The best it could do was send them back to Q school with a warm and fuzzy feeling. Sunday Justin Leonard had a legitimate shot at Augusta's A-list. Having begun his season with six consecutive missed cuts, he clawed his way back to respectability with a win at the Valero Texas Open and could have gotten a trip down Magnolia Lane with a big finish. Instead, he shot one over par on the incoming nine to end up 33rd on the money list.

Clark, on the mend from nerve problems in his neck, seemed an afterthought until he birdied five of six holes from the ninth through the 14th. One more at the 16th got him a share of the lead, but Ames answered with a birdie of his own from inside 10 feet on the par-3 15th, his third birdie in a row. The man with the toothy grin and hearty laugh finished it off with three hard-earned pars on the toughened-up Magnolia Course, getting up and down at the 18th from the left greenside bunker with a 64-foot explosion. Verplank, who had been tied with Ames on the 14th, bogeyed two of the last three to end up three back.

Now that it's history, the seven-event Fall Series can be looked at in a couple of ways. In the first, out of sight, out of mind, off the networks and attended largely by friends and family, players scramble like suckling pigs for a spot on the underbelly of the cash sow that is the PGA Tour in an attempt to afford the G.I. Joe with the Kung-fu grip for the kids at Christmas. In the second, the utility infielders of golf, the long snappers, the bullpen catchers, stagger awkwardly to the end, hoping to earn nothing more than the privilege of doing it all over again next year on the off chance they might stumble onto one of those magical weeks and get their names engraved on something worth engraving, something that doesn't change its name every business cycle.