Shark Was Our Bo Derek - We're All Just Feral Scrubbers By Comparison: Appleby

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday December 4, 2007

Peter Stone

AUSTRALIAN golf continues to wring its hands and gnash its teeth over the state of the game in this country. Tournaments have been lost over the years, sponsors have become increasingly tight-fisted, even though Australia has never had such a crop of world-class players as it does right now.

It is a conundrum - one to which Stuart Appleby believes he has the answer. He believes the spectre of Greg Norman still hangs over tournament golf in Australia, even though it is almost a decade since his glory days petered out.

"Australian golfers are feral compared with Greg Norman," Appleby said yesterday as he practised at Coolum for the Australian PGA championship which starts on Thursday. "I use the analogy that he's our Bo Derek, the most beautiful 10 you could ever get - the most perfect thing that we all admired. We're all a bit feral. We're all just scrubbers in comparison."

Appleby's argument is that Norman played during an era when television coverage was less intense. Only the majors and the Australian events were seen on television. Now, pay TV brings the entire golfing world into our lounge rooms, diminishing the desire to drive down the road to see players at Australian tournaments.

"In Australian golf, we've produced some great crops, to use another analogy - but we just haven't had a Shark vintage," Appleby added. "Once you've had a supermodel, everything else doesn't look as good.

"On paper [among the latest Australian players], we have got the ability to pull out great vintages every year, but we're still living in the era where everything rode on Greg's back. When he was playing, [Australia] had Paz [Craig Parry], Ian Baker-Finch, Wayne Grady, but Greg shone above them all."

Still does, according to Appleby, even though we're now in the next generation. Also, Appleby said, golf was no longer merely a sport, rather a whole economy; a business - and the huge sums of money involved had turned players, especially in the US, into pampered royalty. "A tough week is when you didn't get your room service in the 45 minutes promised, but rather an hour," he said. "That's as bad as it gets."

In 1997, Appleby was the first player to win $US1 million in his first year after going through qualifying. Now, first-season millionaires are a dime a dozen. Ask him and he can't tell you how much he made in the States this year. He thinks it was just under the $US2m mark, but hasn't looked. The actual figure is $US1,803,385 ($2,044,460).

"What it means to us now is the emotion of playing, where you finish in the field, who's in front of you, who's behind," Appleby said. "Some players who have talent play below that talent, caught up in the notion that they have sufficient income for the year."

If Appleby has one regret for this year, it is the US Masters, where he took a one-shot lead into the final round. Analogies were everywhere yesterday for the Victorian, who likened himself to a boxer that week.

"I managed to keep light on my feet and move around the ring without getting punched too many times," he said. That is, until the final round, when he copped a whammy in the form of a double-bogey at the opening hole. "I knew everyone was going to get hit at some stage and I really got hit."

Four of Australia's "ferals" are missing this week - Geoff Ogilvy, Australian Masters winner Aaron Baddeley, Robert Allenby and Rod Pampling - a pity, but they all have valid reasons for their absence.

Best not to dwell on absent friends, but those who are here, or arriving in the next day or so. Adam Scott and South African Rory Sabbatini played in the Nedbank Challenge at Sun City and are arriving late today.

Appleby is here, of course, as are defending champion Nick O'Hern, Australian Open champion John Senden, Mark Hensby, Peter Lonard, Stephen Leaney and Parry.