It's the little things Stuart Appleby misses, the simple things like Renay's face in a tournament gallery or a short, sweet conversation at the end of a long day.

"Or just going to sleep at night by yourself . . . there's a million little things that you miss."

This week's PGA Championship is the 27-year-old Australian's first tournament since his 25-year-old wife, Renay, was killed in a freak traffic accident in London on July 23rd.

One minute she was standing on the pavement beside him. Then a car backed up and she was on the ground, in the ambulance, gone.

This week is just one of the many tiny steps in Appleby's road back to his own life - his new, solo life.

"Option one was to dig yourself into a hole and really begin to feel how deprived and unlucky and ripped off and angry and how could it happen to me," Appleby said. "I can't see myself getting into that state."

Even so, it's a difficult road.

"I wish I could direct myself a little easier and have a plan to where I want to go," he said. "But mainly it's just one day at a time."

Appleby said he was sure that Renay, who often caddied for him before his breakthrough victory on the US PGA Tour last year, would have been the first to encourage him to get back to something he loved doing.

"I was trying to look at it from what would Renay really like me to do," Appleby said. "She would want me to get back. Like falling off your bike. You get back on."

But things aren't so easy for a rider who has grown accustomed to a tandem. "Now, I'm walking around the course, I see no one," Appleby said. "She's not there walking."

So far he is just trying to take comfort in the support of his family and friends.

"Everyone's been fantastic," Appleby said. "But no one can replace that person or what that person did, how that person made me feel . . . "I've just got to imagine that she's here, and she's helping me, and everything will be OK."