Appleby shares lead at Houston

HUMBLE, TEXAS —  Stuart Appleby was back on top of the leaderboard at the Houston Open on Thursday with the same first-round score that propelled him to a six-shot victory last year.

He wasn’t as excited about his six-under-par 66 this time, because he knows he isn’t playing as well as he was a year ago.

Kevin Sutherland and rookie Johnson Wagner, who was born in Amarillo, also shot 66s to share the first-round lead. Like Appleby, they teed off in the morning, before gusty wind kicked up and made the 7,457-yard Tournament Course at Redstone more challenging.

“The course is there to be had,” Appleby said. “It’s not a difficult course in no wind.”

Justin Leonard, Jeff Maggert and Bob Estes were in a group of six players one shot back after 67s.

Appleby hasn’t won since Houston last year and has only one top-30 finish in seven starts in 2007. The Australian birdied three of his first four holes in the early morning, when conditions were calm and the course was most vulnerable.

“That really set the theme for the day,” he said.

Appleby added three birdies on his back nine, but he said the round was rougher than his score revealed. He missed seven of 14 fairways, finding a bunker with his tee shot on the par-five fourth hole that led to a bogey.