The former PGA Tour winner has fallen on hard times in recent years beset by injuries and poor play, which has resulted in him only having conditional status for 2016-17. He'll get some starts others won't by being a past champion, but his focus should be on improving a tee-to-green game that left him ranked 113th in that category last season.
Appleby has cracked the $1 million mark in four of his past eight seasons and he's done so by earning a runner-up or a win in one spot each year. In other words, at this point in his career, he's good for about one good showing each season. Sometimes that good showing is a top-5, others, it's a top-3. Depending on how well he plays that one week, his earnings will either top $1 million or they won't. Not exactly the type of player you want in a salary cap league, or a draft league for that matter. With that said, he does have some value in a draft league, but probably not until the 9th or 10th round.
Appleby opened last season with T3 at Sony Open and then ... crickets. To his credit, finished season on a relative high note, but five-month mid-season stretch where he just disappeared is troublesome.
We've seen this before from Appleby. In 2009, his earnings plummeted all the way below $1 million, but he quickly recovered the following year and nearly earned $2 million. Along the way he picked up another victory, which is vital because he'll be exempt this season with that victory. Appleby is not likely to reach the heights of his 2010 season, but some kind of improvement should be expected.
After a bizarre 2009 season in which Appleby made less than $600K, things returned to normal as not only did Appleby crack the top 40 in earnings, but he returned to the winner's circle as well. Now for the bad news. Although Appleby clearly recovered from his 2009 season, he didn't do much, outside his win in early August, to distinguish his 2010 play from his 2009 play. His victory last season will ease the pressure this year, as keeping his privileges for this season and next are no longer a concern, but that win also inflated his cap number for this season. As such, he likely won't be a good value. Appleby is fairly long off the tee, but other than that, there's little that separates him from other PGA TOUR golfers.
Appleby took his one time top 25 career money list exemption for 2010 and will be just below the winners category in the PGA priority rankings. Appleby will play in any of the events other than the Majors and WGC events he wants to play in, but we must temper our expectations. Unless Appleby has improved his ball striking and his atrocious putting, we might see a similar year in 2010. We expect a bump into the 90-110 range on the money list with the added urgency to play better.
Stuart Appleby broke from his usual trend by making 21 of 23 cuts and finishing in the top-10 seven times. This bodes well for Appleby as he now has a couple different ways to improve upon his number from 2008. Look for the consistency to remain and maybe a couple more top-three finishes in 2009.
There are two things certain with Appleby each year. One, he's going to show up in Hawaii and play well, at least, at the Mercedes he'll play well. Two, he'll show up for Shell Houston Open and most likely win. 2008 however might be a little different for Appleby though because he will not be in the field this year for the Mercedes, because he failed to win last year. Will this throw his entire season out of whack? It's tough to tell if this will have any impact, but one thing is for sure, if he's not playing in the Mercedes, his earnings are bound to drop in 2008.
Appleby is a hard player to get a read on. He plays poorly as often as he plays well, but when he's playing well he usually capitalizes on it. For instance, last year he played in 23 events and finished outside the top 30 in nearly half of those. Two of his events, the Mercedes and the Houston Open accounted for nearly 60 percent of his earnings in 2006, and he actually showed more consistency last year than in years past. The new and improved version of Appleby, more consistent, yet still has that streak ability, actually makes for a better golfer. Appleby will get his win or two in 2007 while playing a somewhat more consistent golf game. But he'll still need two wins to match his production from last year.
Other than the season opening win at the Mercedes championship, there's nothing that really jumps out at me when looking at Appleby's 2005 results. Four top-10s out of 25 tries, not really that good. Eight top-25s not great, heck not good. The one thing that does impress is that he earned $2.2 million and he couldn't putt at all last year. Obviously, he putted well enough during one week to win, but other than that he could not figure out the putter all year. The strange thing is, Appleby has always been a pretty good putter. What happened to the blade in 2005? Not sure we can figure that one out, but if he can make $2.2. million while only putting well for one week in 2005, his chances are good for making more money in 2006.
Appleby made over half of his $2.6 million in the fall. He's always shown the talent to be an elite player, but lacks the consistency. We're not giving up on him yet, especially since he already has a win under his belt at the Mercedes in January.
