Stuart Appleby, the winner of the 2010 Masters, spent three weeks prior to the Australian open, in hospitals rather than the golf course. And it wasn’t just one hospital, where one had his wife giving birth to his fourth child, another hospital had his sister
undergoing an appendix operation.
After his trips to the Melbourne hospitals, Appleby said that he had been one hospital person the whole stretch. So with too much of his family in the hospitals, he couldn’t really find the time to practice and as expected he looked forward to a good practice
session in Sydney from Monday.
However, the scenario had been a bit soggy for the 39-year-old as he stepped into The Lakes. According to recent reports, the pro-am schedule of the Australian Open had to be halted due to hammering rain which forced the authorities to call in more than
30 labours to make the club ready for the first round.
As for Appleby, he never got a chance to practice and thus spent his first round trying to remember what it looked like. But where many would think he probably faltered at the first round like Greg Norman or Adam Scott, Appleby actually made use of the refreshing
feel of the greens and carded an impressive 68.
The Australian Open is scheduled from the 2nd of December and will continue till the 5th of this month. According to news, the $1,500,000 field is being defended by Adam Scott who is currently standing at the 16th place tied
with a minus 3 and includes the likes of Geoff Ogilvy, Aaron Baddeley, John Senden, Michael Sim, Steven Bowditch and Peter O'Malley.
His score thus scared many as the 39-year-old carded a 4 under which was exactly three strokes behind the leader. According to his score card, Appleby collected one magnificent eagle at the par-5 17th hole along with two birdies till which he
remained 5 under through 9 holes.
As for the second round, his back and front nine decided to against him as he recorded a 77.
“There are some blind shots that can be easily missed and that made me miss some of my putts” Appleby said.
He added that the fields took him by surprise and made it difficult for him to calculate what lay ahead at the greens. But Appleby is still confident in his game and promised that he is aptly focusing on creating a good start for the coming rounds.
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