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Allenby stands by story of ordeal

Los Angeles - Australian golfer Robert Allenby on Monday insisted to the Golf Channel that cuts and bruises on his face were proof that he was kidnapped, robbed and assaulted in Hawaii.

Allenby sent the texts after an apparent witness offered conflicting details to the press about his strange ordeal on Friday night.

In text messages to the Golf Channel, Allenby suggested that a homeless woman who described finding him bloodied on a Honoulu street corner was "getting paid" for her claims.

"It's such a shame that people are focusing on whether the story is true," Allenby said in the texts, according to the Golf Channel. "I say you only have to look at me to see the truth."

Allenby says he was beaten and robbed after being kidnapped from a wine bar on Friday night near Waikiki, after missing the cut at the PGA Tour's Sony Open.

The 43-year-old posted a photo on his private Facebook account showing him bloodied with a large scrape on his forehead and another on the bridge of his nose.

Allenby said over the weekend that he was separated from his friends at the bar and couldn't remember what had happened to him between that time and when he was dumped from a car in a park 10 kilometers away without his phone or wallet.

He said he was helped by a homeless woman and a man who put him into a taxi back to his hotel.

Charade Keane, the homeless woman who found Allenby, told an Australian television station he was just a block from the wine bar when she found him, and he was being harassed by two men.

Honolulu police are investigating the incident.

On Sunday, Allenby issued a statement saying he was grateful he didn't suffer "anything major" medically.

He wasn't sure if he would be ready to play this week in the US PGA Tour's event near Palm Springs, California, and on Monday the Golf Channel quoted him as saying he was "not feeling great".

"Can't open my eye," he told the network in a text. "Haven't been able to sleep."


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