Australian Stuart Appleby captured his second United States PGA event of the season, taking the by firing a final-round five-under par-67 Sunday on to win by a record-tying six strokes.
Appleby finished 72 holes at Redstone Golf Club on 19-under-par 269 to defeat American Bob Estes by six strokes and match the largest margin of victory in the history of the tournament, which began in 1946.
American Steve Stricker was third on 276, one stroke atop Sweden’s Mathias Gronberg, two ahead of American Jerry Smith and three ahead of Canada’s Mike Weir, Swede Richard Johnson, South Korean KJ Choi and Americans JL Lewis and Brett Wetterich.
Appleby, who turns 35 on May 1, became the first wire-to-wire winner in the history of the $5,5-million event and took home a $990 000 top prize, boosting his tour earnings for the year to $2,42-million.
”To have a comfortable victory has never left my lips,” Appleby said. ”I’ve never had that luxury. It was nice coming down the last part of the day that things were in hand, and it was just a little bit easier to relax.”
The victory was Appleby’s second of the year, following a third consecutive triumph at the season-opening Mercedes Championship, a Hawaii-based tournament of champions.
”What I’m trying to do is get better at having a well-rounded game,” Appleby said. ”I know that on that level that quality of golf is going to put me in contention more often.”
Appleby joined Masters champion Phil Mickelson and world number one Tiger Woods as the only multiple winners on the US PGA Tour this season.
It was also his second Houston title following a 1999 triumph on a different course, putting him alongside Arnold Palmer and Vijay Singh among multiple Houston champions.
Appleby’s victory was his first in a US PGA event outside Hawaii since the 2003 Las Vegas Invitational and made this the first year the Aussie had won more than once on the US tour.
The Aussie star opened his final round with a birdie and dropped an eight-footer for par at the second hole before taking a bogey at the third.
An approach to three feet at the fourth set up a birdie and Appleby followed with birdies at sixth, where he birdied in all four rounds, and eight, where he sank an eight-foot putt, put him clearly in command.
Appleby birdied 10, 11 and 13 for a seven-stroke edge before a bogey at the 14th and four concluding pars.
Gronberg, who was in the final group with Appleby, began the day two strokes behind, but struggled on the front nine. He spent the rest of the day battling his irons and struggled with Estes for second place. He ended the round with a 73 and finished fourth.
”It was hard,” Gronberg said. ”I didn’t really get anything going, really fought hard, but I just kept on missing a couple of putts.”
Estes began the day four strokes behind but thought his chances were good to get close to Appleby.
”I definitely felt like I could win it,” Estes said. ”I knew I still had a chance, but I couldn’t make any mistakes and when I bogeyed eight and nine, and when I bogeyed 14, that was kind of the end of it for me, probably.” — Sapa-AFP