Cool? Calm? Collected? Certainly unruffled. On a predacious TPC at Sawgrass course, one with a vicious capacity to bite and devour its victims, Stephen Ames avoided the pitfalls inflicted on others to claim the 2006 Players Championship yesterday.

A final round 67 for 14-under-par gave the naturalised Canadian - a native of Trinidad and Tobago - the biggest win of his career, and a cheque for $1.44 million.

On a final day when the sun shone and the course played hard and firm, Ames - who endured his own family issues with cancer last year - started out with a onestroke lead and, while others capitulated, he remained steadfast in search of his goal and finished with a six-stroke winning margin over his nearest challenger, Retief Goosen.

Ames' wife Jodi was diagnosed with cancer last year and underwent surgery the Monday after the British Open. Doctors removed three-quarters of her left lung and her lymph nodes. While his wife recuperated from the surgery, Ames continued to play on tour - bringing his two young boys on the circuit with him - and finished 83rd on the money list with $959,665.

Yesterday's win bettered in one week his total winnings of a year ago. While many others struggled, and only Goosen, who finished with three birdies in his last five holes for a 69 to be on eightunder- par 280, put any real pressure on the new champion, Ames - runner-up here in 2002 - was unstoppable.

Even a doublebogey six on the 10th couldn't halt him.

He responded with a birdie on the 11th, hit his tee shot to two feet for another birdie on the 13th, rolled in a nine-footer for another birdie on the 15th, and then holed a 25-footer from off the green for eagle on the 16th.

Prior to the final pairings setting out, the tournament looked wide open. Surely Ames, the 54-hole leader and only a onetime winner on the US Tour, couldn't fend off the quality, proven players lurking on his shoulder. Who would it be?

Vijay? Sergio? Retief? An improbable charge from Tiger? Or Ernie? Most felt Garcia would be the man. Again. And, again, he proved not to be.

Garcia, with longer hair protruding from the back of his cap and a goatee beard taking away much of the youthful image, still has a touch of arrogance, but, despite the make-over, the Spaniard retains some old failings.

From being considered the prime contender prior to teeing off, Garcia's quest for the title had all but disappeared by the time he reached the sixth tee, after a sequence of bogey-bogey-double bogey-bogey from the second. He eventually finished with a 78 for 286, 11 strokes adrift of Ames.

He wasn't the only one to incur the wrath of the course. Ernie Els manoeuvred into a challenging position, reaching seven-under with five holes to play. But he dropped four strokes over the finishing stretch, including a double bogey on the 17th. Phil Mickelson, too, was a victim of the 17th, the third time in four rounds that his tee shot plonked into the lake.

Singh, too, fell away dramatically, finishing with a 77 for 285. Just last month, Ames suffered a first round mauling - by a record 9 and 8 - to Tiger Woods in the Accenture Matchplay.

"The great thing about this game is it starts over again the very next week," said Woods.

And Ames' final round performance was certainly one worthy of winning such a big tournament. As the last Irishman standing,

Darren Clarke may have expected a wee bit of luck to rub off. Not a bit of it. On a final day that was exasperating, with three dropped shots over the final three holes, Clarke's finishing round of 73 - for level par 288 - meant he had long departed for a few days in Bahamas before the newest champion was crowned.

"I couldn't have been any worse if I had tried," said Clarke, who was rushing to get a flight to the island of Abaca where he has a business commitment with fellow golfer Lee Westwood and cricketer Freddie Flintoff.

"I couldn't have taken any more," added Clarke, reaffirming the point. With a top-10 finish in his sights standing on the 16th tee, it all went horribly wrong when a catalogue of errors finished in a bogey six on the par five - and, then, on the infamous 17th hole, an untimely gust of helping wind as his ball was in flight meant he airmailed the green and took a double-bogey five. He eventually finished tied-20th.

Yet, the signs that it would not be his day came as early as the third hole. Having birdied the second, Clarke's tee shot to the par three third finished up on the right edge of the green.

In moving a little leaf nestled beside it, Clarke was unsure whether or not the ball had moved in making the action. "I called the referee over and called a penalty on myself. Because if it has moved, because if there is the slightest doubt, you call a penalty on yourself," said Clarke.

Still he was "grinding it out" and "doing great" - thanks to a run of 10 pars and two birdies - until he reaches 16. "Then everything goes wrong that could go wrong." On the 16th, he hit it in to the right rough. "I'm three-under and looking pretty good and try to do the right thing, to chip it back out onto the fairway to leave myself a wedge in."

But the ball failed to find the fairway, finishing up in more rough from where he puts his approach into a greenside bunker and, after splashing out to six feet, he missed the putt. His misery was compounded by the 17th, where his nine iron tee-shot found the water. "I'm glad it is over," said Clarke.