Appleby's placing reveals progress

The Open Championship will always mean so much more for Australia's Stuart Appleby than simply the claret jug and the £700,000 winner's cheque. In 1998, a day after that year's Open at Royal Birkdale, his wife, Renay, was killed in a freak accident.

The young couple were about to board a Eurostar train to Paris where they were to spend a romantic break after Appleby had missed the cut at the Lancashire Links. A taxi reversed over Renay and she later died in hospital.

After such a tragedy it was to Appleby's credit that he managed to keep his career on track. Reaching the four-man play-off yesterday, his finest placing in a major, showed just how much the professional from Cohuna has progressed. A bogey at the final play-off hole, the 18th, was a miserable end to what had been an incredible day. A 65, which saw him play the back nine in a tournament best five-under-par 30 had inched him so close to his first major. Appleby was just happy to be in the play-off.

"I was feeling nervous from the very first hole, nervous all day, but I guess good nerves, more a stimulus than anything else, sharpening your focus. I made puts today. I hadn't made any all week, so it was nice," he said.

Appleby knew that caution was not to be the order of his day. "I was a few laps behind and I had to put the foot to the floor and go, I didn't have time to look behind me and see what was going on,'' he said. The high-risk strategy he adopted paid off for him. "I knew the leaders had birdie chances ahead of them and that I needed to really keep going. There was no inclination for me to look at the leader board. I knew I was playing well, but I really had no idea what position I was in in the tournament. I was thinking Stuart Appleby is playing nice, He's hitting the ball well, he's putting alright. What do I need to do. I was not in a position to assess where I was going, I just had to keep charging ahead."

He charged his way into the play-off and it was only when he failed to get up and down from a bunker at the 18th, the final play-off hole, that his tournament was over. His fellow Australian Steve Elkington had seen his chances in the play-off come to a similar fate as his own when he, too, took a bogey five at the 18th. Elkington, the US PGA champion of 1995, when he beat Colin Montgomerie in a play-off, had started the day a 66-1 chance but with a five-birdie 66 made a mockery of those odds.

The 39-year-old from Inverell was only playing in the Open due to an injury to the American, Paul Azinger. Elkington had double-bogeyed the 18th at Dunbar on Monday during qualifying and it seemed as if he was to miss his first Open in 13 years. Then Azinger withdrew with a minor back injury and Elkington was back in.

It was a chance that he was to grab with both hands. A first round of 71, followed by a second round of 73, had put Elkington right on the cut mark at two over par after the first two rounds. He was one of the lucky few to miss the worst of Saturday's weather and took full advantage with a 68. He was still five shots off the lead but then yesterday's bogey-less round to finish took him right to the top of the leaderboard. It was destined to be a challenge that only just failed.