Strip club allegations enter Allenby's abduction story

Robert Allenby. Photo / Supplied

The Robert Allenby mystery has taken another dramatic turn with a new witness coming forward to allege that the Australian was not "kidnapped", "robbed" and "beaten" in Hawaii, but instead had visited a strip club and had passed out before falling and hitting his head on a rock.

Allenby's claims that he was abducted, knocked unconscious and thrown into a boot before coming round in a park 10km away without his mobile phone or his wallet attracted headlines around the globe and earned him widespread sympathy.

But with the Hawaiian police reported to be "sceptical' about his version of the events in the Takiki resort last Friday, and with several witnesses contradicting his story, Allenby is now being ridiculed on social media.

That was inevitable after the Honolulu Star-Advertiser's report appeared with the account of a homeless man who says he was present when Allenby hurt himself.

According to the newspaper, Chris Khamis, 47, came across Allenby in the early hours of Saturday in a street near the Amuse Wine Bar where he had been drinking with his friends until 10.45 the previous evening.

The report says that Allenby told Khamis "he was depressed and had been drugged at a strip club where he went to get some 'action'."

Added Khamis: "He was very down, very, very down, about losing."

This is presumed to refer to his missed cut at that week's Sony Open. Allenby, 43, has recorded just one PGA Tour top-10 finish in the past year.

Allenby maintains that he suffered his facial injuries when being hurled from his abductors' car, but in Khamis' interview there was a different tale.

"There was no crime [when I was present]. It was his stupidity," Khamis said.

"[He] passed out and hit his head. I was there. Nobody pushed him out of a car."

Khamis also told the newspaper that as he tried to assist Allenby with his cuts the four-time PGA Tour winner "kept repeating that he was a millionaire and waved around his American Express Platinum Card".

Khamis' account tallies with that of the first witness to be tracked down by the media.

Charade Keane, a 27-year-old homeless woman, says she found Allenby in the park just across the street from the Amuse Wine Bar, where he was arguing with two homeless men she knew.

Keane claimed that Allenby, who has won more than 20 million ($40 million) in his career, asked help to get US$500 ($664) off his remaining credit card to offer to the men who he believed had robbed him, to return his wallet and phone.

Eventually, Keane said, a former soldier bundled Allenby into a taxi and took him back to his hotel.

Allenby met Keane this week when he thanked her with an embrace and gave her a $1000 gift card.

However, Allenby told the Golf Channel that he "guessed" she was "being paid" to say he was not dumped 10km away.

A local news network, Hawaii News Now, reported that the police were sceptical about Allenby's claims.

There is agreement, however, on the unauthorised use of Allenby's credit card, as there is evidence of an unnamed individual purchasing more than US$10,000 in goods at several stores in the area.

The report also cites police sources saying Allenby's injuries were "not consistent with an assault", but more likely from "scrapes" from a fall.

Allenby and his family have dismissed the doubts. He was due to play in the Humana Challenge, which began in La Quinta, California, on Thursday, but he pulled out at the start of the week.

It is not known when he will return to the Tour.