HUMBLE, Texas -- For the record, it was six shots.

It might as well have been 66.

Can you say cruise control?

From the day Stuart Appleby stepped onto the new Redstone Course, he was at ease. He loved the look. The way he felt on the greens. The way he was swinging the club when he left Orlando. And, most of all, the way he was thinking.

Which was eerily similar to one Tiger Woods.

"The way I was practicing last year, I felt like if I played like I was practicing, I could win," he said. "You don't know what someone else will do, but I knew there would be no way I could finish out of the top 10."

Four tournament rounds, one historic wire-to-wire victory and his second win of 2006 later, Appleby was still having trouble easing up on the pedal.

"You're still switched on," he said. "I think sometimes you think someone will just walk up on the last from 30 feet and fling it down there."

Not Sunday. Not as focused as he was.

"I've watched tournaments where players had big victories and thought I don't know how easy it would be or how crazy it would be," he said. "I felt comfortable and relaxed knowing there was no way I could mess up the tournament, but it's hard to switch off because you're in your golf shoes. You're wearing your golf outfit, walking the fairways, playing golf.

"You're still there in the office and you just don't.. .and the door wasn't closed... .I certainly felt it was the first time I've ever had the time I could calm myself down, not switch off, but know everything was totally under control and there was no way possible anything could happen. No one can take anything from me and I could do anything to screw it up."

In case you missed this Sunday at the Shell Houston Open, Appleby started with a two-shot lead, made the turn up by four and went up by seven with five to play. Officially, he beat Bob Estes by six shots and Steve Stricker, who closed with a 66, by five to win his second Shell Houston Open, the first coming at The Woodlands TPC in 1999. Everyone one else was left in serious dust.

Surprised? You shouldn't be. Adam Scott may be the only Australian in the top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking (ninth), but Appleby is skyrocketing upward (33rd) with a bullet.

It's the first time he's won twice in the same season and he definitely has his eye on the world's top 10. And, yes, he has been in the top 10 before. He was eighth in the world in 2004 after finishing second in the Bay Hill Invitational.

That was, incidentally, the first year he won the Mercedes Championships. He's now won three of those in a row and don't be surprised if this starts another streak in Houston. In addition to his '99 win, Appleby finished second in 2003, at the Redstone course across the parking lot.

But back to this bullet thing.

It's more than world ranking. It's majors. And contending more often than he has, which, in 2002, meant being part of that four-player playoff at the British Open at Muirfield where Ernie Els outlasted him, Steve Elkington and Thomas Levet.

"Look, I need to play more like this, this type of golf," he said. "This is not the next level for me. It's the next level on paper, but I need to keep doing this stuff, keep moving, keep doing this. I don't know if a player thinks that they're at the next level. Sometimes we don't even know when we pass them."

On paper, he did indeed step up. He's been close to winning twice in a season, but now that he's done it, no telling what it will do for his confidence.

Stuart Appleby ranked first in birdies at the Shell Houston Open. (Getty Images)

If there was a turning point here, it might have been his opening 66, which got everyone's attention. Or maybe it was, as his caddie Joe Damiano said, the squirrely shots he hit Saturday afternoon when he still managed a 69. And that two-shot lead.

He just kept thinking the way he had on the range at Isleworth last week. He won't bore us with the details. Just the difference, he said, between average shots and great ones. Things that work under pressure.

And when they worked for three rounds? He went for it in the fourth.

"You don't change the recipe, you just go and grab stuff and start mixing in the bowl," Appleby said. "And that was really what I thought today."

With mindboggling results.

But honestly? He didn't even talk to Damiano about what was going on until they were playing 17 and Damiano told him he had a six-shot lead with two holes to play.

"I knew where I was," Appleby said. "But I just wanted to hear it from his lips. I didn't want to come in and someone say, 'Oh, no. You only have a one-shot lead."

He's been there, done that.

And this? This is better.