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Appleby Copes With Wife's Death by Playing On
Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, May 27, 1999; Page H3
Somewhere in the Kemper Open office at TPC at Avenel is a picture of Stuart Appleby standing on the 18th green during the ceremony marking the second victory of his PGA Tour career. Standing next to him are several tournament officials and his beaming wife Renay, holding a bouquet of flowers. It would be the last tournament she would see him win. Appleby has returned to Avenel this week to defend his title, but without Renay, who died at the age of 26 in a freak accident outside London's Waterloo Station. The young couple was preparing to take a train to Paris for a second honeymoon the day after the '98 British Open. As her husband paid cab fare while she unloaded luggage from the trunk, a second taxi accidentally struck the car and pinned her between the vehicles. She died even before reaching the hospital. Appleby held her in his arms as the life went out of her. He still wears his wedding ring and a chain around his neck with her name on it. "Why not?" he said. "Why take it off? I don't see any reason to. It's a symbol of my love for her and her love for me. That will never change. She will be the most influential person in my life. What she's given me is endless. "I don't think it's like one room, where you open the door and close the door and go into another room. It's not as simple as that. You go into a transition, a slow process. It's like a wine, when does a wine become drinkable? Is it 12 months? Two days? For me, it's when am I ready? I don't know." Two weeks ago, Appleby flew to Washington to attend the Kemper Open media day. It was the first time he had been back to the course since that memorable day last June, when he hit a blind 3-iron shot on the 72nd hole, into whipping wind and horizontal rain from 215 yards out. He got within 15 feet of the cup to assure a one-shot victory over Scott Hoch. "If there was a last tournament that I could win for two or three years, this would certainly be the sweetest one, just to have the flush of memories again," he said. "It may also be one of the hardest ones to win because of the memories. But that's what Renay would love for me to do, just to do it all again. That's what she's been pushing me to do the last nine, ten months. I just make sure I draw on the resources that don't get in my way and go out there and have fun." There are plenty of resources for the 28-year-old Australian, a gifted player many predicted would win major championships before too long. Clearly though, the grieving process continues for a man who grew up on a dairy farm and used to practice golf as a youngster by hitting balls from one stall to another. He and Renay, an accomplished young golfer herself and a contemporary of current Australian LPGA star Karrie Webb, met while both were playing on an Australian team competing in the United States. Renay often caddied for Stuart in his first year on the PGA Tour and always traveled with him to tournaments, walking in the gallery in shorts and a T-shirt while toting a backpack. They bought a $2 million home in Isleworth, the same Orlando golf community where his friends Tiger Woods and Mark O'Meara live. They had planned to start a family. Now, starting a new life without Renay has been Appleby's main purpose, and it has not been easy. He began taking small steps last August, a month after her death, when he decided to return to tournament golf at the PGA Championship outside Seattle. He even asked tournament officials if he could hold a news conference, the better to answer the inevitable questions. Drawn and haggard, with his voice often choked with emotion, he managed to get through the session with great grace and dignity on a day many in the audience also found themselves weeping as he talked about "winning the lottery of life" when he met Renay. That was a small step, and several more followed. He went back to Australia at the end of the '98 season, and entered the Coolum Open-one of Renay's favorite events-on the Australian Tour, an event less than three hours from Appleby's boyhood home. They had always treated that week at the beach resort as an end-of-year vacation. This time his and Renay's parents and many old friends came to watch him play, and win, for the first time since the accident. "To win there was special," Appleby said. "I had as much fun as I could, considering the circumstances." There have been other big steps. Appleby played on the victorious International team in the Presidents Cup last December at Royal Melbourne and also contended for a while in the last round of the Australian Open. Earlier this month, he won the Houston Open, his first tour victory since the Kemper, and he is well on his way to a career-best season, with more than $750,000 in earnings less than halfway through the schedule. "I was very focused that week in Houston," he said. "I'd drop a shot, then come right back on the next hole and make a 25-footer for birdie. In previous months, I just couldn't get a balance in my game, I couldn't get a score on the board. That week, I just tried to let the good shots flow. My main goal was to give myself the best chance I could. If I hit a bad shot, I didn't worry about it. It's something I'd like to re-create every week." But some weeks are better than others. "It's still peak and valley for him," said Peter Malik, his agent. "But he's also gotten a lot better. He was in the last group on Sunday at the Australian Open and I think that's when he realized that golf is still important to him. It was like he said to himself, `I've got to kick myself in the butt and this is the way I make my living.' " Appleby said he has been overwhelmed by the support of his friends on tour and back home in Australia and Orlando. He's received hundreds of letters from golf fans around the world, and galleries have been equally enthusiastic. When he won in Houston, there were few dry eyes in the crowd around the 18th green or in the players' locker room. "It's a brave face he's putting on," said fellow Australian Robert Allenby, Appleby's best friend on the tour. "He's doing pretty good right now, but he really is up and down. It's still a day-to-day thing for him. The best I've seen him was in Houston. It was the first week his mind seemed to be really on golf 100 percent. "The Kemper is going to be a hard week for him. He's got so many happy memories going back there. But all of them will be sad because Renay is not going to be there to share them with him." Said Appleby: "The memories will depend on what's on my mind, something I'll see, where I'm standing. I have no experience in handling this at all. I don't know how I'll react." It was a hard week for Appleby when he returned to the house in Orlando for the first time without her, as well. His friends and Orlando neighbors, Australian tennis player Todd Woodbridge and his wife, Natasha, were there that day to help him cope. He still does not like to be alone in the house. "It just feels empty," he said-and in particularly bleak moods, he will spend the night on a friend's couch or guest room. "The hardest thing is not being able to share good moments," he said. "Before, a good morning was having breakfast together, just talking. It's something I've got to get used to. I have no choice. ... You've got to believe there's a future, that it's a good one and you'll have a chance to do the things you always did. Things happen for a reason. And you can't let it destroy your life."
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company |
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