Sturart Appleby: a different kind of comeback
Growing up as one of Australia’s brightest young golfers, it might well have been where he expected to be. At 33 years of age, Stuart Appleby returns to Australia for the summer golf season, ranked 13 in the world (at time of printing) and as a previous winner of the Australian Open, a title he collected in 2001. But his current good form, sporting success and personal happiness belie one of the most significant comebacks of recent sporting history, albeit a comeback of a different kind.
Stuart Appleby grew up on his parents’ dairy farm in country Victoria and, as such stories go, is said to have developed his early golfing ability by hitting golf balls from paddock to paddock around the farm. As a junior, Appleby was also a keen Australian Rules footballer. However, it was his golfing talent that was recognised by the Victorian Institute of Sport. As a 20-year-old, in 1991, he confirmed his potential, winning the Victorian Amateur Championship, the Australian Junior Championship and the Queensland Open.
In 1992, Appleby toured with the Victorian and Australian Institutes of Sport teams and at a tournament in Texas, USA, was paired with a promising woman golfer by the name of Renay White from Tweed Heads, NSW. Together they won the competition and, while Appleby would later admit that it was not love at first sight, a friendship began to grow. Those who knew the two considered them almost opposites—Renay was intense; he was laid back—but they began practising together.
By the end of that year, Appleby was in love. He recalls one summer evening visiting Renay: “I remember sitting on the beach that night, having an ice-cream, looking out on the ocean,” he says. “It was one of the happiest times of my life. I thought, This is it.”
making par
The year 1994 was Appleby’s breakthrough year on the Australasian tour, winning four championships and launching onto the American tour the next year. As he travelled, he maintained a vigorous correspondence with Renay, and as he prepared to tackle the challenges of the US golfing circuit, he had some much-appreciated support. Renay, who had given up her own golfing aspirations, travelled with him as caddy.
In 1995, Appleby qualified for the US PGA tour and he became only the eighth player in history to win their first event on their outing, after a seven-hole play-off. But after such a promising start, poor results in 1996 saw him having to qualify again. In 1997, he was back on the PGA leaderboard, achieving the biggest win of his life as the first qualifier to ever win $US1 million in the year immediately following qualification.
At the end of 1996, Appleby and Renay were married in Australia and set up house in Florida. Through the highs and lows of the 1997 tour, Renay travelled with Appleby, relaying news to his parents back in Cohuna after each hole as Appleby won his biggest championship—the Honda Classic.
The success looked set to continue in 1998. Early good form encouraged a midyear trip to the British Open and subsequent European holiday. Appleby was ranked 25th on the US money-winners list for the year, but after missing the cut at the British Open, turned his attention to life as a tourist.
into the rough
It was a fateful loss. On the morning of July 23, 1998, the Applebys travelled by taxi to London’s Waterloo Station, bound for a second honeymoon in Paris. While unloading their luggage, Appleby paid the driver. Renay stepped between two cars to get another bag and the front car lurched backwards. Renay was pinned between the two vehicles. Appleby watched in horror as Renay was crushed.
He leapt to his injured wife’s side and began doing CPR. He recalls feeling surprisingly calm. “It was weird,” he said later. “You see these things on TV, and it sort of felt similar . . . but at the same time this was a real person. This was my wife.”
It took 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. Too late. Renay died before she arrived at hospital. She was buried in Australia, leaving Appleby to rebuild his shattered life.
playing solo
Just two weeks later, Appleby fronted a press conference the day before a PGA tournament near Seattle, USA, which became an intense public expression of grief. He began with an open invitation: “If anyone wants to ask questions, fire away,” he said. “Don’t be shy.”
Appleby spoke of his aloneness in grief, after six years with Renay. “It’s the little things you miss the most,” he explained to the assembled media. “Getting through the nights is the toughest part. Being alone. Not having her there to talk to. It’s a feeling I would never wish on anyone, a feeling where you have so many questions but can’t find answers.”
He played the tournament, but admitted ruefully that the applause he received from the gallery crowds was more from sympathy than for good golf. But over time, Appleby’s game did return. That summer, he finished second in the Australian Open and won the Coolum Classic, dedicating his win to Renay. Golf was the consistent aspect of his life, and it also provided an ongoing memorial to his late wife. The Renay Appleby Memorial Trophy is now awarded annually to the best female junior in New South Wales.
But he continued to wrestle with his grief even in the midst of his apparent success. “Straight away, people thought he was doing terrific, but he wasn’t,” said Australian tennis player Todd Woodbridge, who is Appleby’s Orlando neighbour and a close friend. “We found him a couple of times on the floor, and he couldn’t get up. That’s pretty tough.”
In his grief, Appleby continued to draw strength from the relationship with Renay. “I’ve gone through this with so much of her energy,” he said in a 1999 interview. “I just don’t think I would have done as good a job if it were someone else. She was an amazing light in my life. . . . It’s hard to understand what all this is supposed to mean. I have to believe this happened for a reason, although it doesn’t seem like it now.”
Of course, he received plenty of advice as to how to rebuild his life. Associates tell of bags of mail received at every stop on tour, sharing stories of similar loss, offering advice and—from women—offering friendship. And more. But the mail was left unopened.
playing a long shot
Appleby remained haunted by the question as to how and when to love again. “I’ve got to do it when it’s right,” he commented at the time. “It’s very personal to me, but I know it’s a step I have to take. I’d like to think that every day is another step in that direction, because I want to be happy, to have someone to love and care for.”
The breakthrough came in 2000 when a mutual friend arranged a blind date with one Ashley Saleet during a tour stop in Ohio. Ashley was seven years younger than Appleby, was still in college and had no knowledge of golf. Her immediate response to the suggested date was “Who’s Stuart Appleby?”
Yet there was a connection between the two. In a less than conventional evening, Appleby shared his pain and they cried together. At the conclusion of the tournament, they spent a day together. Returning home after dropping Appleby at the airport, Ashley found a message on her answering machine: “I just want to thank you for [Saturday], today, and the next time I see you. I know it will be wonderful.”
a twosome
The new relationship was an emotional struggle for Appleby. “There were times when I couldn’t download that amount of information that quickly,” he recalls. But as hard as it was to grow this new relationship, he realised the importance of this step. “I had to take more control of my life [and] what my future was going to be,” he said. “I certainly knew that being in a relationship where you’re loving and being loved, and where you’re sharing, was important. I wanted that. I knew it was going to happen again. I had to wait my time.”
At the same time, Ashley had to grow into a relationship in the shadow of Renay and of what she had meant to Appleby, his friends and family. In doing this, Ashley not only met Appleby’s family but also Renay’s. It was a process of growing and healing for all those involved.
on the leaderboard
Stuart and Ashley Appleby were married on the beach at Noosa Heads, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, in December 2002, the beginning of a new chapter in an already remarkable life as one of Australia most successful current golfer. Commenting upon that tragic, life-changing moment in 1998, Appleby says, “I don’t really think about it—I can, but I don’t.”
The previous chapters of his life aren’t forgotten but Appleby’s focus is on the present and, this month in particular, on winning this year’s Australian Open.
Sources: Golf World; www.golfdigest.com, www.stuartappleby.com
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