COMMENT

Robert Allenby must wish he could go back to the tee, pull out a new ball and hit a provisional. Or just have a plain old Mulligan.

The Australian golfer's elaborate story about being kidnapped in Honolulu is getting more holes in it by the day as it hooks and slices from one detail to the next.

If he were on the golf course playing a hole, he'd have hit a tree, then a bunker, lost a ball and be well and truly entrenched in the woods by now. Quadruple bogey.

To re-cap quickly, Allenby last week claimed he was drinking at the Amuse Wine Bar in downtown Honolulu with his caddy and friends after missing the cut at the Sony Open when he was kidnapped, bashed and dumped 10 kilometres from the venue, sans wallet, mobile and credit cards, before being saved from a group of men by a homeless woman.

Witnesses have since come forward to say the golfer was found right outside the bar, mistook two homeless men as his "captors" and then racked up a $4300 bar tab at Club Femme Nu, a Honolulu strip club (unfortunately Kevin Rudd wasn't there).

Our first reaction upon hearing news of the story was shock - this sort of kidnapping stuff just doesn't happen to professional athletes. Even Allenby himself said the incident was like something out of the Hollywood blockbuster Taken.

We then found ourselves believing the abrasive Australian. All of a sudden it didn't seem so surreal that a rich sports star in a fan-friendly town could attract unwelcome attention and trouble. In fact, why hadn't it happened before?

But alarm bells began to ring on the Victorian's story when it was revealed the (aptly-named) homeless woman Charade - who he said had come to his aid - contradicted his claim he was dumped 10 kilometres from Amuse Wine Bar. Allenby responded by telling the Golf Channel, via text messages, that "she was clearly being paid off" when the broadcaster questioned inconsistencies in his story.

Curiously, he then did an interview with Channel Nine at the scene of the "crime" near the wine bar, where an awkward reunion was aired between Charade and Allenby. He hugged her, thanked her and gave her $1000 for all she had done for him... a day after telling the Golf Channel she was a liar and being paid off. Hmmmmm.

However you see it, the real crime - perhaps the only crime here - and what led this writer to believe Allenby's story had the yips, was the meagre reward he gave her for saving his life.

Allenby, 43, is a tour veteran, racking up 22 career wins, including four on the lucrative PGA Tour and 13 in Australasia, winning close to $30 million in prizemoney.

That he could muster only $1000 for a person (a homeless one at that) he said he owed his life too beggars belief and only reinforces the doubt around his story.

Can you imagine Tiger Woods giving a homeless person just $1000 if they saved his life from a kidnapping ordeal? Or any one of the thousands of professional athletes around Australia if they survived a similar ordeal? Or you or me?

The aggressive Allenby is no stranger to the spotlight. He often verbally attacks fellow golfers on tour and can be extremely prickly after bad performances. He and fellow Victorian Geoff Ogilvy almost came to blows after the 2011 Presidents' Cup when Allenby blamed him for his poor showing at the tournament.

If controversy didn't follow Allenby like a bad slice, we might not have had as much trouble accepting his memory loss.

But he is one who likes to make excuses and his bizarre explanation of his Honolulu injuries seem in line with this trait.

His story seemed destined for the water after the strip club revelation but, true to form, Allenby is sticking by it and found a way on Wednesday to blame the media for his ordeal.

While there are still many, many unanswered questions in this embarrassing saga, they say the devil is in the detail and Allenby's $1000 deed could just undo any faith we had left in his tale.