Robert Allenby is looking to launch a Steve Stricker-style career resurrection and return to the top echelons of world golf.
Allenby, who for years was a staple in the world top 50 and a regular contender on the US PGA Tour, has slipped in the last few seasons but feels ready to claw his way back, just as Stricker did before him.
After getting dropping to 606th in the world thanks to missing 33 cuts in 2012 and 2013 on the US tour, Allenby is at least back on a slight upward trend at 552nd after using a lifetime money list exemption to play this season.
The long road starts at the Sony Open in Hawaii this week.
Allenby has missed four of the last five cuts there but he was a runner up in 2010.
Stricker, now world No.9, won three US PGA tour events between 1996 and 2001 before slowly losing his game and confidence and eventually his card in 2004.
The American plummeted to 646 in the world before rediscovering his game in 2006 with seven top 10 finishes.
Nine more wins in the last seven years since then has made Stricker, now 46, the poster child for redemption.
“It’s never too late, I might be 42 but I’m feeling fit and ready to go like a 24-year-old,” Allenby said.
“Look at Steve Stricker. He dropped miles out of the world rankings and came back so to speak from the dead.
“Plus a guy like Mark O’Meara didn’t win his two majors till he was 41.
“The reality is there are a lot of players who have done that. It’s just a matter of re-finding yourself, accepting what’s happened and moving on.
“I’m beyond that point now and now it’s time to slowly move back up to where I belong.”
Always a dogged competitor and still the only man to claim Australia’s triple crown, Allenby has come through the other side of some personal family issues, a recently changed coach and club manufacturer but says he needs to look within to get his edge back.
“There is only one person who can help, and that’s myself,” he said.
“My main goal is to get back to playing the way Robert Allenby can play and that’s a consistent top 30 player in the world.
“My focus is completely on golf and I’m determined to work my arse off to get there.”