3-peat: Appleby bests Singh in playoff
Vijay Singh made a dramatic charge from 5-strokes back at the start of the round, shooting a 7-under 66 to grab the lead at -8 in the clubhouse. Fighting some mid-round balkiness in his putter, Stuart Appleby steadied himself to make a 5-footer for par on the 17th and then another 5-footer for birdie on the 18th to force a playoff. Both were huge clutch putts.
In the playoff, it only took one hole, the par-5 18th. Both hit monster drives. Appleby flew his 3-iron on the green but it rolled into the bunker. Vijay, seeing that, hit his ball shorter, in the hopes of rolling it onto the green, but his ball checked up. Vijay hit his chip to 10 feet, but then Appleby nearly holed his bunker shot, leaving it a little over a foot. After Vijay missed, Appleby made his.
Story of the tournament: Besides Appleby’s 3-peat, the story of the tournament was how difficult Kapulua played with the new slick greens and gusty winds. Last year, there were 50 rounds in the 60s during the Mercedes. This year, only 2. Vijay hit the low round, but came up a tad short. Stuart Appleby, to me, is the best player not to win a major.
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