By Luke Buttigieg, Sportal 2001 champion Stuart Appleby says a concerted effort to maintain his composure after he made a poor start to the MFS Australian Open in atrocious conditions on Thursday at Royal Sydney is the reason he remains in contention for a second Stonehaven Cup. Appleby began with a double bogey six at the first hole, and conceded on Friday that he wondered just how tough his opening day was going to be with the gusty winds, low temperatures and heavy rain considering it was one of the easier holes. But his efforts to keep his head together amid the disappointment of the dropped shots paid off as he toughed it out to finish the day with a three-over 75, and then backed up in more favourable conditions on Friday morning with a 68. He may have started the day eight shots adrift of overnight leader Nathan Green, but three birdies on each of the back and front nines after he began at the 10th brought him right back into the mix, with only another six at the par four 15th costing him a lower score. “I didn&apost want to go home but I was like &aposthis better not be the trend&apos, that was one of the easier holes for the tournament, and there I was, just walked off with a six, about to play the next hour straight into the wind,” Appleby said. “I wasn&apost looking forward to it but I knew there was a lot of golf left. I just had to get my proverbial together and recover. I just knew how daunting the rest of the day was going to be.” “I gave away at least two shots to the field and I just got out of the gates slow, I&aposve been watching all this horseracing and there I was stumbling around getting banged around the rails trying to get my jockey to get into me.” Appleby added that his early setback was another reminder of just how tough the tournament that he won five years ago at The Grand in Queensland was going to be. “You&aposve got to watch and that&aposs what tough golf courses do, they make you make mistakes when you think they aren&apost really potentially around and sometimes you can scrape through and make fours when you thought you were going to drop shots,” he said. “It&aposs a bag of snakes sometimes.” But all of those negative thoughts were brushed aside on Friday when Appleby turned things around, otherwise he would have been heading in the wrong direction like his friend Robert Allenby, the defending champion who finished on plus seven overall. “It was important because I needed to feel like I was going in the right direction versus where I thought I was going to head after hole one. I thought &aposman I won&apost break 80 if this is the vibe for the day&apos,” Appleby said. “I steadied the ship and then I had to try and steer it back and try and get into red numbers today. I didn&apost know what I could score today, I didn&apost know what the wind was going to do.” “I knew that I could get more rhythm than I had yesterday because no one had rhythm at all. Mentally and physically you could just never get any rhythm, it was just that difficult.”