Twenty years on from his historic Triple Crown where he won the Australian Open, PGA and Masters in consecutive weeks, Robert Allenby reflects on one of golf\u2019s most extraordinary accomplishments<\/p>\n
Believe it or not, I actually didn\u2019t think I was going to play that Australian Open at Moonah Links. About a month prior to coming down to Australia, I had tripped over, cut my hand open and had to have stitches in my right hand. My hand was killing me, and I was like, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to be able to play.<\/p>\n
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I was staying at my mate Rob Curtain\u2019s house down in Sorrento. Lucas Parsons was over on that Wednesday night. We\u2019re having a barbecue at Rob\u2019s house, having a couple of red wines and I\u2019m like, \u201cMy tee time\u2019s at 8 o\u2019clock. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to go. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m ready to play.\u201d And my buddy Rob\u2019s like, \u201cOh, come on. Get off your butt and just go win the thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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I truck my way out to Moonah Links for the first round the next morning. I tee off and I\u2019m like, birdie, birdie, birdie. I then go: three-putt bogey, birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie. Next minute, I\u2019m nine-under and thinking, Maybe Rob\u2019s right. Maybe I am going to win this thing.<\/p>\n
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If you got out there early on that Thursday morning, you got the best draw. There\u2019s no question about it. If you were off in the afternoon, you had no chance. The conditions were nearly impossible. They were at their worst and I only just hung on.<\/p>\n
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On the Sunday, I had to get the physio out on the golf course because my arm and bicep were starting to hurt because they were compensating for the hand. I got a lot of work done on my arm and so forth throughout the last five holes.<\/p>\n
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My children, Harry and Lily, were 6 and 3 at the time. We went to a pub in Portsea on the Sunday night and Harry wanted to drink lemonade out of the Stonehaven Cup, and so did Lily. We filled it to the brim with lemonade, got two straws and let them drink the whole thing. Once they were finished, I asked the barman if he could wash it out, dry it and then we filled it with two or three bottles of Penfold Grange and then the adults all drank out of it.<\/p>\n
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The funny part about the next week at the Australian PGA \u2013 and not many people know this \u2013 I was coming down the back nine on Sunday and said to my caddie Dion, \u201cWhatever we do coming down the last hole, I have to make a birdie to win this tournament.\u201d I was tied with Mathew Goggin. I rip a 3-wood down the middle of the fairway and now I\u2019ve got an 8-iron in and the flag\u2019s sort of back, middle-left, but really close to the water, which is a perfect shot for me, hitting a draw. I said, \u201cLook, I\u2019m going to hit this to about a foot and tap it in. You\u2019re going to pack the bag up and I\u2019m going to do the quickest press interview ever.\u201d The last flight out of Brisbane was like 8 o\u2019clock, and I didn\u2019t want to miss it because I had my Challenge charity golf day on the Monday in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
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I hit it to two feet, I tap it in, shake hands, quickly do media and drive down to Brisbane Airport and get on the plane. We only just made it; I think they held the plane for us, believe it or not. We had the charity day at Yarra Yarra on the Monday and then it\u2019s Australian Masters week.<\/p>\n
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I was paired in the last group on Sunday with Nick O\u2019Hern, and Nick had about a three or four-shot lead. By the time we got to probably hole 10, we were either even or I was one shot in front. I started making a few more birdies and then, all of a sudden, this great big left-hander called Bubba Watson starts making a run of birdies on the back nine. And I\u2019m like, Where\u2019s he come from?<\/p>\n
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We finish tied and go to a playoff. If there\u2019s one thing I know about Huntingdale Golf Club is that the greens are fast on a Sunday afternoon. I hit a 9-iron about 12 feet past the hole in the playoff; hit a great shot in there. And then Bubba had a flick sand wedge for the length that he has, and he hit it to about eight or nine feet. My putt is downhill and it\u2019s slicker than an orange peel; back in those days those greens were running at about 15. They were the fastest greens in the world. I just tapped it down there to a foot-and-a-half past the hole and said, \u201cI\u2019ll finish.\u201d I tap it in and he hits his putt. I could see that if it didn\u2019t hit the hole, he\u2019s going four or five feet past. Sure enough, it went four or five feet past, and I said to Dion, \u201cHe\u2019s going to miss this. I can see him shaking.\u201d He missed it \u2013 he pushed it \u2013 and so I win the tournament. And I\u2019ve won the Triple Crown.<\/p>\n
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I know Peter Senior\u2019s won a few events in a row \u2013 maybe an Open, PGA and Johnnie Walker Classic \u2013 but to win the Open, the PGA and the Masters was definitely one of the greatest achievements in my career. It\u2019s definitely a big part of me. The Triple Crown was a huge achievement, and to be the only player to have ever done it obviously sits very highly.<\/p>\n
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Adam Scott had a chance to do it at Royal Sydney back in 2013. He had a one-shot lead against Rory McIlroy at the Aussie Open going up the last. I still remember the commentators saying, \u201cIf Adam Scott wins the Australian Open, he\u2019ll be the first person to win the Triple Crown with Robert Allenby.\u201d I still remember the words that came out. I was like, Well, he\u2019d be the second person to win the Triple Crown because Robert Allenby has already won the Triple Crown. Just seemed a funny way of phrasing it.<\/p>\n
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I had a manager back in the \u201990s who said something that stuck in my head. When I won, he would say, \u201cYou\u2019re only as good as your last event.\u201d After winning the Open, I went into the PGA with a lot of confidence and then I go win that. I\u2019m coming into the Masters and I\u2019m like, Well, I\u2019m only as good as my last tournament and I\u2019m a champion. So you know what? I can win this one, too. When you let yourself go and not think about the outcome or the consequences, it\u2019s amazing what you can achieve.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photograph by Jensen Larson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty years on from his historic Triple Crown where he won the Australian Open, PGA and Masters in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-238589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}