Appleby - play-off winner on Sunday (Getty Images)
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Stuart Appleby beat Vijay Singh in a play-off to become the first player in
nearly 50 years to win the US Tour's season-opening event three years in
succession.
World number two Singh produced a dazzling seven under par 66 - the best round
of the week by three strokes - to force Appleby into needing a last-hole birdie
to catch him on eight under at the Mercedes Championships in Hawaii.
But after the Australian achieved it they returned to the same hole and a
brilliant bunker shot for another birdie gave him the crown.
"I'm short of words," he said. "To win it the first time was great. Second
time awesome. Third time, it's the wrong English, but more awesomer. It's a
dream come true."
Gene Littler lifted the winners-only tournament from 1955-57, but the
remarkable thing about Appleby's feat is that he has not won anywhere else over
the three-year period.
"This one was the hardest," he added after a week of strong winds which saw
only two players - Olin Browne with a 69 on the opening day and Singh with his
closing round - break 70.
The Fijian, having started the final 18 holes five adrift, eagled the long
fifth and then picked up five birdies to lead by two. And that despite Appleby
also grabbing eagle at the fifth.
Singh then bogeyed the 17th, but a closing birdie four set the mark and,
having closed the gap at the 15th, Appleby chipped to four feet on the last to
force sudden death.
From just short of the green in two this time Singh three-putted for par,
whereas Appleby was in a back bunker for two and saw his recovery trickle over
the edge of the hole and stop a foot away.
"I had to do something special coming in. I didn't do it, so I had to do it
in the play-off.
The 34-year-old, whose wife Ashley is expecting a baby just as she was at the
start of last year, earned just over a million dollars - and a third
Mercedes-Benz sports car.
Jim Furyk was third, Michael Campbell joint fourth with Vaughn Taylor after
slumping to an inward 41 and Sergio Garcia dropped to seventh with a 75.
"I played well all week, I just made a few mistakes each day," Singh said.
"Today I said I was going out there to be a little more aggressive, take on the
golf course and hit it like I can."
Appleby, a seven-time winner in America now since the tragedy of his first
wife being killed in an horrific London traffic accident, commented: "I was
practising well coming here, but the one thing I thought I might have been
superstitious about was that I wasn't in Australia and preparing like I had for
the previous two wins.
"I was in Florida, so I thought maybe that might be my hiccup. But I just
thought I've played well here before and I know what I'm doing here. It was like
there was no break - I put myself in the moment of the previous two years.
"I didn't look at a leaderboard until the 15th green and saw that I was
behind. That score (Singh's) was just phenomenal, but Joe (Appleby's caddie)
said to me 'this is our party, he's not invited'."
Collated final-round scores and totals (USA unless stated, par 73):
(Stuart Appleby Wins at 1st Extra Hole)
284 Stuart Appleby (Aus) 71 72 70 71, Vijay Singh (Fij) 70 74 74 66
288 Jim Furyk 72 72 72 72
290 Michael Campbell (Nzl) 72 72 71 75, Vaughn Taylor 74 73 72 71
291 Lucas Glover 74 73 70 74
293 Sergio Garcia (Spa) 71 74 73 75
294 Justin Leonard 72 78 72 72
295 Bart Bryant 74 72 76 73
296 Peter Lonard (Aus) 74 74 73 75
297 Wes Short jr. 73 73 75 76, Tim Petrovic 74 77 74 72
298 David Toms 71 73 79 75, Geoff Ogilvy (Aus) 75 72 74 77
299 Jason Bohn 76 70 78 75, Mark Calcavecchia 73 74 73 79
301 Robert Gamez 77 76 73 75, Olin Browne 69 76 76 80
302 Kenny Perry 74 77 77 74, KJ Choi (Kor) 75 74 77 76
305 Carl Pettersson (Swe) 71 85 75 74
306 Ted Purdy 73 75 77 81
309 Heath Slocum 74 81 78 76, Brad Faxon 82 78 75 74
310 Ben Crane 79 78 78 75
312 Fred Funk 76 82 78 76
318 Sean O'Hair 77 79 80 82
320 Jason Gore 80 80 81 79
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