First Impressions

After 334 PGA Tour starts journeyman Michael Allen needs exactly one Senior PGA Championship to be a winner again

worth the wait: Eleven years since winning an event on the Nationwide Tour, Allen was unflappable at difficult Canterbury, becoming just the fourth man to snare a major title in his senior debut.

By Dave Shedloski

Photos by Hunter Martin/Getty Images

June 1, 2009

Cleveland is an unlikely place to go rummaging for redemption. The Rust Belt relic in northern Ohio is where sports dreams go to not just die but to be eviscerated. Drop your favorite underdog on the shores of Lake Erie and you'll see: Cinderella walks on broken glass, Rocky can't get out of the first round, and there is absolutely, positively no way the U.S. Olympic hockey team authors the "Miracle on Ice."

So one has to note the discordant locker-room scene at Canterbury GC, the storied layout that has hosted all manner of big events and almost without fail has produced an accomplished champion. There was Michael Allen late Sunday afternoon sitting in front of Locker 19, puffing on a fat Te-Amo cigar between gulps of Heineken, signing autographs and relishing the fact that his 5:30 p.m. EDT flight home to Scottsdale had already taken off without him.

"I've waited a long time to miss a plane on Sunday," Allen said with a grin after emphatically exhaling a puff of smoke from his stogie. "I'm so happy right now, I'd probably agree to do anything anyone asked me to do."

While the mind races with possibilities on how to test that declaration, consider its motivation. Allen, 50, had just become a most unlikely winner of the 70th Senior PGA Championship with a two-stroke victory over Larry Mize. Not that he didn't earn it; he most surely did, firing a closing three-under 67 to nullify a similarly stout effort by the 1987 Masters champion. And you would have thought Allen had been there before, too, given how he had finished in style: a birdie constructed from a drive to Position A, a gap wedge to 10 feet and the prettiest little lag putt that leaked into the left corner.

But Allen had already given himself away after the approach, looking squarely into an NBC camera as he marched to the green and shouting, "About freakin' time!"

Allen last won a tournament in 1998 at the Nationwide Tour's Greater Austin Open. Before that he could only dine out on his '89 Scottish Open title. Chafing him like wet sand in his pants was a PGA Tour résumé that was void of success in 334 attempts. But no more. In capturing the year's first major on the senior circuit, the journeyman pro erased decades of doubt and frustration, becoming the 14th man to win his Champions Tour debut and just the fourth to do so in a major, joining Roberto De Vicenzo, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. Allen, one of the few seniors with a triple-digit world ranking (he is 236th), is the 23rd player and third in the last five years to win the Senior PGA in his first try.

"I ran into the wrong guy at the wrong time," said Mize, referring to a player who heretofore had simply been the wrong guy every time.

With a six-under 274, Allen pocketed $360,000, nearly double his season earnings in 12 events on the PGA Tour, and earned a berth in the PGA Championship at Hazeltine National GC. Bruce Fleisher also shot 67 to end up third at 277, while Tom Watson became the fifth man in four days to tie the competitive course record with a 66 to finish fourth at 280.

Exempt on the PGA Tour after finishing 106th on the '08 money list, Allen earned plenty of perks on the Champions Tour, but remains determined to keep taking on the youngsters. "This just gives me the exact scenario I wanted," he said. "I'm going to be the first guy ever to win a senior tournament before he wins a PGA Tour event. Sounds good, anyhow."

Pretty ambitious for someone who has been through Q school 13 times—and holds the record for making it through successfully: nine times—and who upon receiving an invitation to the Senior PGA two months ago contacted PGA of America officials wondering if they had the right guy. "My wife said, 'Hey, a letter from the PGA; I think they want you to play.' I said, 'No, I probably have to pay some dues or something.' I never really had an invitation for anything," Allen said.

Mize stormed out in 30 during the final round but had trouble on the testy incoming nine and was runner-up.

An 0-for-334 string seemed like enough dues, but further deposits appeared to be necessary when Mize birdied four of the first eight holes in the final round, turned in 30 and blazed ahead by two shots. But the unbalanced nines played into the hands of the longer-hitting Allen, who was seven under for the week on the inward par-36 leg of 3,771 yards (compared to the 3,124-yard, par-34 front nine). Mize was two over on the second nine, including a bogey at the 12th after a wayward drive. Allen, who began the final round with a one-shot lead, regained control with a birdie from 20 feet at the par-3 ninth and another from five feet at 12. Though he bogeyed 14, Allen came back to birdie the par-5 15th after a flip wedge to seven feet. No one was going to catch him after that.

"I actually felt calm the whole day," Allen said.

"First and foremost, he played fantastic," said Jeff Sluman, who for the second year in a row was in the final group, joining Allen and Tom Kite. "Tom and I mentioned at the end of the day, how well he did play. He just drove it crazy. It was well deserved for him to win."

"This means a lot more to Michael than he's been able to convey to you. He'd been staring at that wall for a long time," said Allen's wife, Cynthia. "The work, the trying, the perseverance … he was frustrated greatly at times, but I never questioned his ability to play. I knew he'd eventually get the monkey off his back."