Some golfers are remembered for what they do on the golf course, others for the way that they do it.

When evaluating the careers of Stuart Appleby and Ian Stanley it’s hard to look past the personalities to their actual accomplishments.

Both men had their grounding on the Melbourne sandbelt, Stanley becoming a much-loved figure at Huntingdale Golf Club and Appleby joining Yarra Yarra Golf Club after making the move down from Cohuna on the Murray River.

A two-time Victorian Junior champion, Stanley completed a three-year apprenticeship under Geoff Flanagan at Huntingdale and then in 1975 recorded his first win as a professional in, of all places, Papua New Guinea. Also that year Stanley was joint winner of the Martini International along with Christy O’Connor and won the Queensland Open by four strokes, the first of eight wins on the PGA Tour of Australasia.

Runner-up at the 1974 Australian PGA Championship when he lost an 18-hole playoff with Billy Dunk by a single stroke, Stanley’s greatest accomplishments on the course arguably came after his 50th birthday.

Shortly after joining the seniors ranks ‘Stan the Man’ won the 1998 Australian Senior PGA Championship and in 2001 claimed the Senior British Open, defeating New Zealand’s Bob Charles in a playoff in a field that boasted Jack Nicklaus, Dave Stockton and Gary Player.

The winner of 30 professional events in his career, it was Stanley’s charitable efforts following the accident to good friend Jack Newton in 1983 that endeared him to everyone within Australian golf.

He travelled the country raising money for the Jack Newton Trust and would later establish Tee Up for Kids that raises money for underprivileged kids in Victoria, passing away after a long battle with cancer in July 2018 at age 69.

Appleby too has used his profile to help others, establishing the Stuart Appleby Junior Golf foundation to aid the development of juniors in Victoria.

Winner of the 1991 Queensland Open as an amateur, Appleby turned professional the following year, his first win as a bona fide pro coming at the 1994 Victorian PGA Championship.

In 1995 Appleby made the move to the United States and made an instant impression, winning his first event on the then Nike Tour and adding a second title in October, finishing fifth on the moneylist to earn promotion to the PGA Tour.

It only took until Appleby’s second year on tour to earn his breakthrough PGA TOUR title at the 1997 Honda Classic but there would be two feats in particular that would make Appleby a household name.

Appleby had rounds of 62 and 63 in his victory at the 2003 Las Vegas Invitational which earned a return to the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii in 2004, Appleby winning three years in succession to be dubbed the ‘King of Kapalua’.

The most recent of Appleby’s nine PGA TOUR wins came at the now-defunct Greenbrier Classic in 2010 and it was one for the record books, becoming just the fifth player to shoot 59 in a PGA TOUR event – in the final round no less – to win by a shot. Later that year he was awarded PGA TOUR Comeback Player of the Year.

Appleby boasts a top-10 finish in each of golf’s four majors, the closest he came to the trophy coming at the 2002 Open Championship when he and fellow Aussie Steve Elkington finished one shot behind Ernie Els in the four-hole aggregate playoff.

Within Australia Appleby has claimed three of our most enduring tournaments, the 1998 Coolum Classic, 2001 Australian Open and 2010 Australian Masters.

Stuart Appleby
Career wins: 17
PGA TOUR wins: 9
Australasian Tour wins: 3
Australian Open: Won (2001)
Australian PGA: T2 (1997)

Ian Stanley
Career wins: 30
European Tour wins: 1
Seniors Tour wins: 3
Australasian Tour wins: 19
Australian Open: T3 (1975)
Australian PGA: 2nd (1974)