Notebook: Appleby not sad to end his reign as King of Kapalua  PGATOUR.com Senior Correspondent KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Stuart Appleby wasn't sad that his three-year reign as the "King of Kapalua" had ended. 
Sure, the amiable Aussie had gotten used to getting a win under his belt in the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship as well as putting another luxury car in his garage. But at least now the pressure is off. "I had a great run," he said, an impish grin forming, "and I don't have that difficult dilemma anymore of what kind of car and what color to pick out." Appleby closed Sunday with a 2-under-par 71 and completed 72 holes in 4-under 288, good for a tie for 13th place. He never got on a roll the way he had in past years on the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort. Every part of his game was good but not particularly sharp. He still had a smile on his face, however, as he left the 18th green and the crowd offered a genuinely enthusiastic sendoff for his efforts the last three years. "That was very nice," Appleby said. "Generally, I'm pretty happy with my game. I was just shy of playing decent. I felt like I could have gotten to 8 or 10 under par, but I never quite got going. I struggled a bit with putting and reads. When you win, it's sometimes merely the difference between putts that lip in and putts that lip out. "It wasn't really one thing for me this week," Appleby added. "I had some very poor golf holes. Two double bogeys ... not sure I have done that here before. But I'm looking for ward to the year. It's a new challenge in front of me. I have to go out now and win something else." GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY: Having played little before embarking for Maui, David Toms wasn't sure what kind of game he was going to bring to the Mercedes-Benz Championship. Not surprisingly, his game got better each day as his focus and shot-making sharpened and he got increasingly comfortable with his new TaylorMade clubs. Toms prepared for his defense of his Sony Open in Hawaii title Sunday by firing a 6-under-par 67 -- low round of the tournament -- and ended up tied for eighth with a 6-under 286 aggregate total. "That was a good day today," said Toms, who broke par in his final three rounds after an opening 75. "You know, I came in here not really playing much golf at all and I improved and got in a groove with the new sticks and I'm just happy how I'm playing. It definitely set up everything and should be looking good for next week." DOUBLE EAGLES: Last year Chris Couch converted only four eagles, or one for every 337 holes he played. On Sunday at the Plantation Course he made two eagles in a three-hole span. It didn't seem like a big deal, but it was. "It's a very big deal," said Couch, who once had three eagles in one round of golf, but that happened while playing with friends in Florida at Gainesville Country Club. "I had so few last year, and it was nice to see a few go in." Couch eagled the par-5 fifth with a huge drive and a 4-iron from 217 yards that settled six feet from the pin. Two holes later, on the long, downhill par-4 seventh hole, he struck what he called "the worst drive of the week," into the left rough. From 176 yards he muscled out a wedge that landed on the front of the huge green. and the ball found its way to the back hole location, trickling in for a deuce. "I don't want to say it was luck, but it kind of was," he said, grinning. SOLO SPEED: Ben Curtis, playing alone for the second straight day, shot a closing 3-over-par 76, but it wasn't how many that mattered for the two-time winner from 2006 but how long it took. He completed 18 holes in 2 hours, 41 minutes -- so fast, in fact, that he had to wait on official scorer Montana Thompson to arrive at the scoring trailer before he could sign and turn in his scorecard. Curtis finished at 20-over-par 312, last among the 33 players who played 72 holes (Arron Oberholser withdrew after the first round with a back injury) despite enjoying a decent week striking the ball. "My putting just absolutely killed me," said the 2003 British Open champion, who had 130 putts for the week. "I know these are tough greens, but they can get you down. The thing is to just move on now and forget about it." Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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