Life as Robert Allenby's caddie: 'It can be hell'

Josh Peter | USA TODAY Sports

Robert Allenby says he is seeing a psychiatrist to cope with what the professional golfer has suffered through — on and off the golf course — over the past nine months.

In January, he woke up bloodied in the streets of Honolulu after he was robbed. Allenby said he was drugged and kidnapped, while GolfChannel.com published an article alleging he spent $3,400 at a strip club — both accounts police said were never confirmed.

Shortly after the incident in Hawaii, Allenby said, board members on the charitable foundation for which he has helped raise almost $30 million tried to oust him.

He has missed the cut or withdrawn in 13 of 18 tournaments since January, finishing no better than tied for 51st, and scarcely resembling the golfer who has won four times on the PGA Tour and amassed $27 million in earnings.

Oh, and he said when he recently arrived at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport he discovered his golf clubs had been destroyed.

“It’s been a really traumatic year,” Allenby, a 44-year-old Australian, told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s been pretty tough to take.”

If he’s looking for sympathy or support, he shouldn’t go to the caddyshack, where Allenby is better known as “The Beast” and caddies say he has been inflicting pain and suffering on them for years.

“The running joke is, ‘Did The Beast get out of the cage today?’ Especially when there’s a little pressure on, Robert becomes that beast even more,” said Cameron Ferguson, one of at least 24 caddies who have worked for Allenby.

USA TODAY Sports interviewed nine of those caddies, and they said he can be among the most generous players in golf — as well as one of the most verbally abusive.

“There’s definitely a split personality there,” said Joe Damiano, who added that Allenby has fired him twice. “Put it this way, it can be hell.”

Walking off

Allenby’s uneasy relationship with caddies came to a head in July when Mick Middlemo dropped Allenby’s bag and walked off the course in the middle of a round at the Canadian Open. It was the second time one of Allenby’s caddies has walked off the course in the middle of a round, according to Allenby.

Allenby said he fired Middlemo, and the next day Middlemo fired back — telling reporters he quit after Allenby called him by a vulgar term and did so loud enough for others to hear.

Allenby was furious that Middlemo said he doubted Allenby had been drugged and kidnapped in Hawaii, and instead thought the golfer’s facial lacerations and bruising were the result of him falling down because he was drunk.

Middlemo had also broke an unwritten rule on the Tour — caddies don’t dish to the media.

It’s kind of that thing in Vegas — what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” Allenby said. “Well, what happens on Tour stays on Tour.”

Many of his former caddies said Allenby repeatedly blamed them for his mistakes.

“You kind of need to accept responsibility for your own actions on the golf course,” said Robert Floyd, who is the son of Hall of Famer Raymond Floyd and caddied for Allenby for about nine months starting in 2011. “He never has and never will.”

But Allenby has not always been so difficult to work with. Damiano said Allenby was “wonderful” to caddie for when playing Q School before Allenby earned his PGA Tour card.

“He never missed a shot and he was nice as pie,” he said.

But when Damiano took a job with Allenby years later in 2008, he said he encountered “The Beast.”

“And I kept going back for the simple reason that he needed help and I could use the money,” Damiano said. “If he’s playing good, everything is fine. If he’s playing bad, everything’s wrong and your the biggest a------ that ever lived.

“It was just one of those deals where he got sick of looking at me, I guess. I definitely got sick of looking at him. He made a few comments that were extremely personal, so if he didn’t fire me, I was going to quit.”

Jason Shortall, who briefly caddied for Allenby in 2013, said the golfer’s temper kept him from offering advice.

“You’re always on edge,” Shortall said. “If he hits a bad shot, it’s going to be put back on you. You’re going to hold back and let him make the mistake. You don’t want the consequences of saying something and not being right.”

But Allenby said all he needs is someone to talk to, and he recently hired Rod Armstrong, a player manager he’s known for two decades. In 24 years, Allenby said, he has found only three good caddies among the two dozen he has used — Colin Burwood, Michael Waite and Craig Thompson.

Phil Mickelson has had the same caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay, for his entire career. Tiger Woods, in the 20th year of his pro career, is on his third caddie. And Kenny Harms, who has caddied professionally for 25 years and is a member of the Association of Professional Tour Caddies, said the use of 24 caddies is an “awfully high number” even during a 24-year career.

“You would think that he’d be more settled in building a relationship and trust with a caddie,” Harms said.

Robert Allenby: 'I never lied to anyone' Professional golfer Robert Allenby reasserted Tuesday that he was abducted, beaten and robbed in Hawaii on the night of January 16.

Jekyll and Hyde

Allenby might be the only golfer to have employed a caddie who wore a court-ordered alcohol monitoring device while on the course. In 2011, Allenby hired Floyd after the caddie had spent a month under house arrest following a second DUI arrest.

“That was a pretty big commitment,” Floyd said, yet their friendship ended and Floyd refers to his old boss’ behavior as “kind of Jekyll and Hyde.”

Floyd suggested drinking may have contributed to some of Allenby’s problems.

“If he’s serious about something, he’ll go three or four days without a drink,” Floyd said. “But it’s those Sunday nights or those Mondays or those Tuesdays or weekends when he’s home that he decides he’s going to go out, it’s out of control.”

Allenby said he never drinks during a tournament and said he fired Floyd over a Facebook post Floyd made before a tournament in Floyd’s hometown.

“I see this thing on his Facebook page, ‘Come out and support the Floyd and Allenby Show,’ ” Allenby said. “There were a lot of people who came out and I would hit a good shot and they were cheering him. And it wasn’t a jealously thing. I just felt like I didn’t need that type of attention out on the golf course.

“It got to the point where it got distracting. …When a caddie goes out there to show off and act like a clown, that’s where I kind of draw the line. And I sacked him.”

Floyd reponded: “The only way it could have been a distraction to him is his ego was distracted or fragile because people were yelling for me and not him.”

Ferguson, the caddie who survived only a few events before they parted ways — again, Allenby said he fired the caddie and the caddie said he quit — witnessed that sensitivity at The Players Championship in 2001.

The unraveling started with a poor shot, according to Ferguson.

“All I remember is we made the turn and we get around to the first hole and he misses the green front right, horrible lie,” Ferguson said. “He takes his lob wedge and I go up to stand in my usual position and he totally whiffs it. Goes straight under the ball. He totally whiffs it.

“He looks down and it’s still there and then he looks up at me and he’s like, ‘Can you stand any closer? I can’t breathe with you that close. Here, do you want to hit the shot for me?’ That was typical Robert Allenby right there.”

But things got worse the next day, Ferguson said, when he repeatedly asked spectators following Woods nearby to be quiet as Allenby prepared to hit shots.

“Will you shut up? I’m sick of hearing your voice,” Allenby snapped, according to Ferguson.

“And one of the playing partners we were playing with actually said to me when we got off the green, ‘I’ve heard this guy is bad, but I’ve seen it now.’ ”

Allenby is known for paying caddies more than the going rate — now 7% of money won and 10% if the golfer wins the tournament. During meals in the evening, he routinely picks up the check — “Just go out with him, you won’t be able to put your hand in your pocket,” Damiano said — and he makes sure his caddies have enough money to cover hotel, meals and incidentals.

“I think behind (Allenby’s) generosity, he might be trying to make up for all the other stuff that he deals out,” Ferguson said. You can’t argue that Robert’s done wonderful things with his foundation and he is a very generous person. It’s just, I guess caddies are a punching bag.”

In fact, even Allenby acknowledges at times he has been “The Beast.”

“Sometimes you’ve got to let it out,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been taught. But sometimes I’ve probably taken it out on my caddie too much.”

With that in mind, Allenby said he screens prospective caddies with the help of Burwood and Waite, his former caddies.

“The only caddie I’ve ever had in nearly 25 years of playing professional golf, (Middlemo) was the one who says, ‘You can throw anything at me. Anything. I have the toughest skin out of them all,’ ” Allenby said. “He was the one that cried like a baby in the end.

“It’s actually pretty funny.”

Middlemo isn’t laughing.

“I can handle myself pretty well. I’ve got pretty thick skin,” Middlemo said. “I never figured I’d walk off the golf course. I never thought it’d get to that stage.”

Nor did he think his public showdown with Allenby would give birth to a new beer. Scott Hedeen, owner of Burnt Hickory Brewery in Kennesaw, Ga., decided to create a special ale in tribute to the episode.

The beer, a jalapeno mango-flavored India Pale Ale, will be served at Middlemo’s nearby bar and restaurant. He said he decided to take six months off and focus on his business after his six-month stint with Allenby.

As an act of solidarity, Middlemo said, he’d like to serve the new beer to other former Allenby caddies who he thinks will appreciate the name of the beer.

“THE MAD CADDY.”