KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Stuart Appleby's exploits in Maui can’t match those of the titan warrior King Kamehameha I, who united the island chain in 1795. But the Australian golfer is being hailed as the “King of Kapalua” after uniting three straight victories in the season-opening Mercedes Championships.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Appleby, 35, said of his royal moniker, which he earned Sunday with a playoff victory over tenacious Vijay Singh on what seems like his own private outback known as the Plantation Course.

Only Davis Love III has won as many titles at Kapalua Resort when the unofficial Kapalua International was staged until 1997. Only 14 other men in PGA TOUR history have won the same event three years in a row, the last being Tiger Woods when he won four straight Bay Hill Invitational titles from 2000-03.

Appleby, who birdied the final hole for a 71 and 284 total, 8-under par, to equal Singh through 72 holes of regulation, drew upon all of his accumulated knowledge of the Plantation Course and how he attained his victories here in ’04 and ’05, both one-stroke triumphs.

“I just thought, ‘I’ve played well here before, I know what I’m doing here,’” Appleby said after winning his seventh PGA TOUR crown, worth $1.08 million. “I thought, keep playing, keep thinking like you almost had before, 12 rounds linked up together. It was like there was no break … just put myself in the moment of the previous two years.”

Singh, who also had a chance to win each of the last two years, finishing second and fifth, didn’t make it easy, firing just the second sub-70 round of the week and the best score of the tournament, a 7-under 66, to put the pressure on Appleby.

“That was an awesome round,” said Appleby, whose 4-foot birdie putt forced the playoff, of Singh's effort. Appleby won it on the first playoff hole when he birdied 18 again, this time from 2 feet after a splendid bunker shot from behind the green, while Singh misfired from 9 feet for birdie.

Singh made things difficult, but the Plantation Course made it even harder. With slick new greens and winds that howled the final three rounds, scoring was tougher than ever. Still, it should have been no surprise that Appleby figured out the combination to open the safe.

“This one was the hardest in test of your game and mentally and physically,” he said. “But this one was the best because it was the hardest.

“To win it? The first time (was) great,” he added. “Second time, awesome. Third time, it’s the wrong English, but more awesomer.”

What would be even better still, using the right English, is for the amiable Australian with the unstoppable putting stroke, who, in the final singles match, watched Chris DiMarco sink the winning putt for the Americans in last fall’s Presidents Cup, to follow up this latest conquest with a more solid season and rise into the top 10 in the world rankings. The previous two years he wasn’t able to add a second title to his Mercedes crown.

“If I can start throwing in … a tournament every four or six like this, the way I’m feeling and playing … I’ll have a great year.

“Someone said to me this morning, ‘You should have bought property, here,” a grinning Appleby, who has also won three Mercedes-Benz automobiles, one for him and one for each of his children (his wife, Ashley, is expecting again in late February) added. “I heard that so many times this week. “But then the guy said, ‘You don’t need to buy property; you own the golf course.’ I thought, ‘That’s cool.’”

Yes, well, it’s good to be the king.