Allenby on the road to winning a major

MAYBE, AFTER all this time, this will be Robert Allenby’s year. His year to win, his year to feature in majors. On Sunday, the 38-year-old Australian came up short in the Sony Open – finishing a stroke adrift of winner Ryan Palmer – but, despite his gallant effort to make it a third successive win worldwide in three starts on the back of the Nedbank Challenge and Australian PGA championship in December, there’s an increasing sense he can finally deliver in one of the big ones.

Although he has gone over eight years without a victory on the US Tour since he claimed the 2001 Pennsylvania Classic, the remarkable fact is Allenby has won close to €12 million in the States in that period and had 49 top-10 finishes as a measure of consistency without managing to claim another title there.

Despite his close calls and apparent lack of success in the US, Allenby’s wins worldwide – four wins on the European Tour, 13 in Australia – means he has accumulated career earnings around the world of €15 million which places him in the top 20 in the all-time list. For example, by comparison, Pádraig Harrington’s career winnings of €12.5 million have the three-time major winning-Irishman in 35th in the worldwide all-time money winnings.

So, what’s held Allenby back? His putting for one; and a propensity for injuries, including a car crash in Spain in 1996 that left him with a broken sternum, for another.

In recent years, he has struggled with a wrist injury – which has cleared up – and he even overcame a twisted ankle when again getting into contention in Hawaii before his bid to maintain the winning streak that started in South Africa and continued in Australia before Christmas was denied.

Allenby’s fine run of form has moved him up to 15th in the latest world rankings, and it will prove interesting to see if he can bring the best form of his life into the majors where he has traditionally performed poorly, with just two top-10 finishes in 55 major appearances in his career.

Palmer, who collected a third career title when winning the Sony Open at the expense of Allenby, has jumped 190 places to 92nd in the latest world rankings.