Stuart Appleby hit golf’s magic number yesterday, shooting a 59 to win the Greenbrier Classic in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
Appleby’s 11-under round put him at 22 under, giving him a one-stroke victory to end a four-year winless drought. Third-round leader Jeff Overton (67) narrowly missed a long birdie try on the par-3 18th that would have forced a playoff.
Appleby is the fifth PGA Tour player to reach the milestone. The Australian’s round came less than a month after Paul Goydos had a 59 at John Deere Classic.
The others to shoot 59 were Al Geiberger at the 1977 Memphis Classic, Chip Beck at the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational and David Duval at the 1999 Bob Hope Classic.
Appleby had nine birdies and an eagle in his round on the Old White course.
Appleby birdied the final three holes with putts of under 15 feet to earn the $1.08 million winner’s check.
“You don’t shoot a low number . . . feeling a huge amount of indecision,” Appleby said. “I was just comfortable.”
Appleby won for the first time since the 2006 Houston Open. The 39-year-old trailed Overton by seven strokes to start his round and was playing three groups ahead.
Appleby’s achievement was the first 59 on a par-70 course. Goydos’ came on a par 71 and the others on par 72s.
U.S. SENIOR OPEN
In Sammamish, Wash., Bernhard Langer shot a final round 3-under 67 and took advantage of Fred Couples’ critical mistake to complete a daunting trans-Atlantic double and win the U.S. Senior Open championship.
Coming off a victory at the Senior British Open last week at Carnoustie, Langer finished at 8-under for the tournament, fighting off jet lag and a partisan hometown crowd hoping Couples could pull out victory just 20 miles east of where he grew up.
Tied with Langer starting the day, Couples birdied the opening hole before he made triple bogey on the par-5 second, the easiest hole on the course.
WOMEN’S BRITISH OPEN
In Southport, England, Yani Tseng of Taiwan made a 6-foot putt on the 18th hole to win the Wom en’s British Open by one stroke over Kath erine Hull of Australia.
Hull came into the round trailing by four strokes but trailed by just one heading into the 18th. But she missed a 20-foot birdie attempt and had to settle for a 70, and Tseng made her par putt to shoot 73 and total 11-under 277.
IRISH OPEN
In Killarney, Ireland, Ross Fisher won the Irish Open by two strokes over Padraig Harrington after shooting a 6-under 65 in the final round. The Englishman totaled 18-under 266 after he had been briefly joined at the top of the leaderboard by Harrington (64) on three occasions.
MET AMATEUR
Evan Beirne, a 22-year-old senior at St. John’s who plays out of Bethpage, defeated defending champion Cameron Wilson of Shorehaven, 7 and 6, in the 36-hole match-play final yesterday at the 108th Met Amateur Championship at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale.
