BY ED FOWLER

Rees Jones had a good idea. The renowned golf architect drew up a fabulous finishing hole that brought water into play on both shots. Some said it called to mind the fabled No. 18 at the Blue Monster at Doral in Florida. According to the plan, the tournament leader would arrive at the tee in front by one with his lunch doing somersaults and his head on a turntable. With a stiff wind quartering into him and gusting, he would stand there for a time with his brain performing more computations than a mainframe computer. The rest of us, looking on, would perform more emotional calisthenics than Lady MacBeth.

Darn good plan. But then Stuart Appleby came along.

By the time the affable Aussie reached No. 18 tee on the Sunday of the first Shell Houston Open played at Redstone Golf Club’s Tournament Course, he could have pumped more shots into the drink than Tin Cup’s Roy McAvoy and still won.

Drama must wait for a different day and a lesser champion.

Nothing describes how Appleby manhandled the field like his winning margin, six shots. Even that imposing number fails, however, to convey how he dominated his unfortunate PGA Tour colleagues in the final-round coup de grace of a wire-to-wire victory, the first ever in the annals of the Houston tour stop.

He posted seven birdies in his closing round. He reached 17-under and settled matters by the time he made the turn, dipped to 20-under before giving one back. His 66-67-69-67 romp left him at 19-under, six better than Bob Estes and seven better than Steve Stricker.

Even in Aussie-friendly Houston, Appleby blazed a new trail. His countrymen Bruce Devlin, Bruce Crampton, David Graham and Robert Allenby all won this event, but Appleby became the leader of the antipodean assault. Crampton (1973 and ’75) beat him to multiple victories, but Appleby overtook him both in margin of victory and, resoundingly, in earnings. He also became the ninth multiple winner of a tournament that dates to 1946. The six-stroke margin matched the record set by Jack Burke Jr. in 1952 and tied by Vijay Singh in 2002.

Appleby sliced the top $990,000 off the $5.5 million purse. He had claimed a modest $450,000 for his 1999 victory and now has won $1,776,000 in Houston. And the oil companies thought they were doing well. He climbed to No. 4 on the tour’s money list for the year with $2.4 million and joined Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods as two-time winners this season.

The rest of the blokes might be better termed a supporting cast rather than competitors, but whatever you called him, 40-year-old Bob Estes was glad to come second. The former University of Texas player and Austin resident, done up in his Sunday orange, shot 69 to zip out of a traffic jam and finish a shot ahead of Steve Stricker, who made the most of a sponsor’s exemption with a closing 66. Mathias Gronberg, who began Sunday play two shots back of Appleby and played with him, limped home in 73 and took fourth.

For Appleby, no monsters were chasing and no dragons lurking. His only challenge was to maintain focus.

“I was a seven-time winner before today,” he said. “I think I know what I’m doing. I know how to win. I’m telling myself not how great I am but saying, ‘You’ve done this before, done it different ways, playoffs and what-have-you.’ I thought what I was doing worked for one day, a second, a third. You don’t change the recipe, you just go and grab the same stuff and start mixing in the bowl.

“There was no time when I felt like I had to change the game plan, to be more aggressive or more defensive. I felt I was in ultimate control of what I was doing and no on else was putting enough pressure on me to make me be more aggressive or more conservative. The course was tough enough where you couldn’t be silly out there. That plays into my hands. I can play conservative but also sneak a birdie in.”

In 2007, the SHO moves to the week before the Masters. Appleby, as defending champion, no doubt would like nothing better than to return with the same recipe. Others would not object if the boys cooked up a little more drama.