Allenby “Not Expecting Much” from his WM Phoenix Open Week

For Robert Allenby, taking a mulligan for the start of his 2015 would be nice.

The 43 year-old golfer from Melbourne, Australia was recently visiting Honolulu, Hawaii when he was said to have been kidnapped, drugged, robbed and beaten after having dinner with his caddie and a friend. Problem is that he has no recollection of it because he had blacked out from around 11pm to around 1:30am.

The story first surfaced when he had posted a picture of himself with cuts and bruises on his face on Facebook in order to what he says, get a hold of his son because he had no phone and no numbers memorized. That picture then went viral.

As time has gone by with this story, there have been reports that witnesses saw Allenby spend over $3,400 dollars at a strip club that night and later was seen by a homeless man passing out on a street and hitting his face on a rock.

Allenby, despite all of this going on in his life away from golf, is back to work for the start of his 2015 PGA Tour Season which happens to be in Scottsdale for the 2015 Waste Management Phoenix Open. He started off his week by addressing the media that he stands by the original story that he told.

“I think the first thing that everyone needs to understand is that there is an investigation going on to what did happen on that Friday night,” Allenby said at the TPC Scottsdale on Tuesday. “The authorities are doing their absolute best. We’re hoping in the near future that something will be reported.”

“The number one thing that you should all remember is that my story stays exactly the same way as I told it,” he added. “I told you what I knew and I told you what someone told me. And that’s the bottom line.”

Allenby admitted that if he did do something wrong in the time period he has no memory after the investigation is completed, he will own up to it, but his biggest concern through all of this has been for his 15 and 13 year-old children. He went on to say that he knows he did not drink enough to put himself in a state of blacking out and had to have been drugged to end up in the condition he was in that night.

With different stories being told about what had happened, he was asked what he has learned from this 

“I have realized that I don’t have any friends in the media,” he stated. “Maybe one.”

Regardless of the media and the on-going investigation, Allenby will play golf this week in Scottsdale. After a practice round on Tuesday, he joked that despite dealing with concussion-like symptoms up until a few days ago, he felt good physically.

“I’m hitting the ball,” he said with a smirk on his face. “Physically, apart from a few scratches and that, I am starting to feel really good.”

Allenby didn’t have his best showing of 2014 last year at this event as he missed the cut shooting a combined four over par on through the first two rounds. He mentioned that him being back this year is more about moving on with his life than anything.

“I am not expecting a lot from this week,” Allenby explained. “I am just expecting to in myself is to overcome this ordeal and try and just move on with my life. I love golf and that is the reason why I am here. Otherwise I would have taken this week off and probably the next month off.”

Allenby will tee-off from number one to begin his opening round at 7:30am and will be paired with Brendon de Longe and Nicholas Thompson.