Date: December 03, 2008
Author: Luke Buttigieg, Sportal

Allenby after No.4

With his seriously ill mother&aposs blessing, Victorian Robert Allenby is gunning for a fourth Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA Championship title this week at Coolum. It has been well documented that Allenby had badly wanted to win last week&aposs Sportsbet Masters at Huntingdale so that he could dedicate victory to his mother Sylvia, who is battling cancer. The 37-year-old was unable to do so, even though his mum made it out to Huntingdale on the Sunday afternoon hoping to see him claim another win, and the realisation that he had missed his chance when he stumbled at the 15th saw his emotions take over. But having had the chance to spend some more time with his mum on Monday and Tuesday, Allenby decided to honour his commitment to play at Hyatt Regency Coolum this week. “Monday I was thinking about not coming because I just didn&apost think that I was mentally and emotionally ready to play for this week,” Allenby said on Wednesday afternoon after playing in the pro-am. “I said to my mum Tuesday morning when we had breakfast &aposI&aposm happy to stay home and just be with you if you want, I don&apost have to go (and) play, you&aposre more important than golf so tell me what you&aposd like me to do&apos.” “And she said &aposI&aposd like you to go up there and win the tournament&apos. That&aposs why I&aposm here, that&aposs my ultimate goal is to try and win the tournament.” “But the good thing about my mum, she said &aposI&aposd love you to win the tournament but if you don&apost win don&apost worry about it, it&aposs not the end of the world&apos, she said &aposI&aposll still love you after&apos.” Struggling with his emotions after Sylvia Allenby also made it to his annual charity dinner on Monday night in Melbourne, Allenby puts his mother&aposs ability to &aposdo the best she can&apos despite the disease down to her upbringing in Yorkshire. “We know what&aposs going to happen and we can&apost control it but the most important thing is that we can give her all the love we can and give her all the greatest memories that we can as well to keep her spirits high and keep her fighting for as long as she can,” he said. “But it&aposs hard, I&aposve never had to deal with anything like this in my life. I&aposve never lost anyone really. When it&aposs your mum and dad it&aposs a little bit different and plus being the youngest of four she&aposs always been there for me.” A win would be even more special because his mum and dad both backed him as a 17-year-old when he left school at the end of year 11 to pursue his dream to be a pro golfer. His parents sold their house to help fund his early forays overseas and both parents continued to encourage him throughout those junior days to help mould the player that he has since become. “She&aposs always been a strong person, she&aposs always been whatever your dream is, go for it,” he added. “When I was a kid, when I was a 17-year-old kid and left school at the end of year 11 my mum&aposs always been a huge supporter for me.” “My mum and dad had to give up a lot, they had to sell their house to do that, so they really took a gamble I guess but they also had the belief. They knew what I knew and I was a pretty hard worker.” “But she always just said &aposif you have a dream of being a professional golfer, and a dream of being one of the best players in the world, then you go for it&apos. She never stopped me, my dad never stopped me.” As for his chances of winning the Joe Kirkwood Cup again, the 2000, 2001 and 2005 champion is confident that he can salute but hopes that the Coolum greens quicken up a bit. “I&aposm always pretty confident with my game,” he said. “My game&aposs there, I think everyone knows it&aposs there and I know it&aposs there, that&aposs really what counts. It&aposs just a matter of making some putts.” “Hopefully the greens might get a little bit quicker by tomorrow, they&aposre a little bit slow at the moment but I guess that&aposs all the moisture in the air, it keeps them long (and) they grow pretty quick up here. But look I&aposm here so I&aposm looking forward to a good week.”