Date: November 25, 2007
Author: Bren O'Brien

Appleby pleased with Masters effort

Stuart Appleby is pleased with his week&aposs work at the MasterCard Masters despite a double bogey on the 72nd hole costing him his chance for victory. Appleby, who has not won on home soil in six years, looked set for victory when he birdied the 12th, but a slip-up on 18, his only mistake of the day cost him dearly. He would miss the playoff between Daniel Chopra and Aaron Baddeley by those two shots. But after a mixed year on the US Tour, Appleby feels he has made significant progress this week as he bids to change his mental approach to his game. “It is a combination of relaxation and focus. There is the concentration on what you are doing and enjoying that and enjoying the process of getting into the tournament,” he said. “This is not a low shooting tournament. We&aposve had pretty benign weather, considering that we can get here. You have to keep your wits about you.” “I did like the way I putted this week I was very happy with the way I read the greens, You always want to make more because you always need to make more to get out in front,” he said. Appleby wasn&apost too disturbed by his disaster on 18 and said it was a just a culmination of bad luck and bad management. “I hit the drive dead straight. I nailed it down the left hand side (into a bunker). I took an eight-iron out of the bunker and took a drop off the stand. I hit what I thought was a decent shot, driving it up the hill but it came back on me. I feel I had at least 15 feet left on the putt,” he said. “I thought I hit a better putt. Didn&apost hit a good second putt. If I&aposd hit a better drive, it would have made the hole a hell of a lot easier. The cards did not fall my way. I knew the first putt was slow, but it did not seem so slow. The one downhill was one of the toughest you could have anywhere. I read it pretty good but I could not hit it on the line I wanted,” he said. He said if he could go back and change one thing this week, it would not be the final whole but to spend less time in the bunkers having hit sand nine times in 72 holes. “You think things like British Opens are where you get in bunkers. You can go a whole week without getting in a fairway trap but I watched my caddie do a lot of raking this week,” he said. “You&aposve got to keep out of them because they are pretty penal. The lips are pretty big on the fairway traps. Very rarely do you get the ball on the green out of the fairway traps. They are five or six feet deep.”