Charlie Sifford, who only wanted a chance to play and broke the color barrier in golf as the first black PGA Tour member, died Tuesday night, the PGA of America said.

Sifford, who recently had suffered a stroke, was 92. Details of his death and funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

PGA of America President Derek Sprague called Sifford “an uncommon and faithful servant.”

“His love of golf, despite many barriers in his path, strengthened him as he became a beacon for diversity in our game,” Sprague said. “By his courage, Dr. Sifford inspired others to follow their dreams. Golf was fortunate to have had this exceptional American in our midst.”

A proud man who endured racial taunts and threats, Sifford set modest goals and achieved more than he imagined.

Sifford challenged the Caucasian-only clause and the PGA rescinded it in 1961. He won the Greater Hartford Open in 1967 and the Los Angeles Open in 1969. He also won the 1975 Senior PGA Championship, five years before the Champions Tour was created.

His career was fully recognized in 2004 when he became the first black inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Last November, President Barack Obama presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer are the only other golfers who received that honor.

“Charlie won tournaments, but more important, he broke a barrier,” Nicklaus once said. “I think what Charlie Sifford has brought to his game has been monumental.”

The one goal that eluded him was a chance to play in the Masters, which did not invite its first black player until Lee Elder in 1975. Sifford remained bitter, though the pain was eased when Tiger Woods won the first of his four green jackets in 1997.

Woods often has said he would not have played golf if not for Sifford and other black pioneers.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that without Charlie, and the other pioneers who fought to play, I may not be playing golf,” Woods said in an email to The Associated Press late last year. “My pop likely wouldn’t have picked up the sport, and maybe I wouldn’t have either.”

The road was never easy.

Sifford was born on June 22, 1922 in Charlotte, North Carolina. He worked as a caddie and dominated the all-black United Golfers Association, winning five straight national titles. He longed to play against the best players, only to run into the same barriers that Teddy Rhodes and Bill Spiller faced – the Caucasian-only clause.

In his autobiography, “Just Let Me Play,” Sifford told of meeting Jackie Robinson in California about the time Robinson was trying to break the color barrier in baseball.

“He asked me if I was a quitter,” Sifford wrote. “I told him no. He said, `If you’re not a quitter, you’re probably going to experience some things that will make you want to quit.'”

During the 1952 Phoenix Open, one of the few events that blacks could play, Sifford found human feces in the cup when he got to the first green. He received death threats over the phone at the 1961 Greater Greensboro Open and heard racial slurs as he walked the fairways. He finished fourth, and didn’t quit.

He was beloved my some of golf’s biggest stars, including Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.

During his induction ceremony, Sifford told of his first meeting with Palmer. They were playing in the 1955 Canadian Open at Weston Golf and Country Club and Sifford opened with a 63 to lead Palmer by one shot. He recalled Palmer standing in front of the scoreboard saying, “Charlie Sifford? How the hell did he shoot 63?”

“I’m standing right behind him,” Sifford said. “I said, `The same damn way you shot 64.’ That’s how we met.”

Palmer went on to win the Canadian Open that year.

Sifford also received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland for his career as a pioneer.

He often attended the Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone, not far from his home in Ohio. During an interview with the AP in 2000, Sifford said he was proud of the role in played in making the PGA Tour accessible to blacks.

“If I hadn’t acted like a professional when they sent me out, if I did something crazy, there would never be any blacks playing,” he said. “I toughed it out. I’m proud of it. All those people were against me, and I’m looking down on them now.”

SAN DIEGO – A group of PGA Tour caddies has filed a class-action lawsuit demanding that the tour compensate them for wearing bibs.

Some 80 caddies joined the federal suit filed Tuesday in Northern California. At issue is having to wear bibs that have the logo of the tournament sponsor. The caddies contend the PGA Tour is making $50 million off the sponsors while the caddies get nothing.

The lawsuit stems from a dispute that has been brewing for more than a year. It also says the tour has denied caddies access to health care and pension plans.

Named as the two class representatives were Mike Hicks, the caddie for Payne Stewart when he won his last U.S. Open, and Kenny Harms, who caddies for Kevin Na.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – With an eagle putt that looked as long as his golf journey around the world, Brooks Koepka surged into the lead and stayed there Sunday with a 5-under 66 to capture the Phoenix Open for his first PGA Tour victory.

Lingering for most of the final round, Koepka holed a 50-foot eagle putt from the fringe on the 15th hole and didn’t make any mistakes the rest of the way.

The victory ended a long, arduous road for the 24-year-old from Florida. With no status in America, Koepka played the Challenge Tour in faraway lands like Kazakhstan and Kenya, winning four times to earn his European Tour card and then validating his status as a rising star by winning the Turkish Open last year.

But winning at home brought the strongest validation.

“It feels amazing,” Koepka said after his one-shot win over Hideki Matsuyama, Masters champion Bubba Watson and Ryan Palmer.

Of the five players who had a share of the lead in a wild final hour at the TPC Scottsdale, Matsuyama had the last chance to catch Koepka until his 18-foot birdie putt on the final hole missed well to the right.

Martin Laird, who had a three-shot lead going into the final round, was tied with Koepka going to the 17th until he sprayed it well right into the gallery on the short par-4 hole and made bogey, and then pulled his tee shot into the water on the 18th and made double bogey. He closed with a 72.

Palmer shared the lead with a birdie on the 15th, but he had to settle for pars the rest of the way for a 66. So did Watson, who reached the front of the 17th green only to three-putt from just over 100 feet and made par. He closed with a 65.

Matsuyama, who holed out from 129 yards for eagle on the first hole and was the first player to catch up to Laird, took the lead with a beautiful pitch behind the green on the par-5 13th. He went 44 consecutive holes without a bogey until Matsuyama three-putted on the 14th hole, and he never recovered. He shot 67.

Koepka already was eligible for the Masters with his tie for fourth at the U.S. Open last summer, and his victory during the final stretch of the Race to Dubai in Europe last year raised his stock. The victory Sunday should put him at No. 19 in the world.

This was his second victory in his last four starts, both against strong fields.

Koepka had not played since the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa two months ago, taking a full month off away from his clubs and working hard over the last few weeks after a change to his putting stroke.

Back-to-back birdies near the end of the front nine kept him in range. A solid chip from behind the 13th green for a 4-foot birdie kept him within two shots of Matsuyama. And his fortunes changed mightily with his eagle putt on the 15th.

A Florida State alum who describes himself as “chill” had plenty of adrenaline pumping on the 17th hole when he hit 3-wood on the 322-yard hole onto the green and over the back. It came to rest on the red hazard line, a foot from going into the water. He chipped to about 12 feet and missed the birdie putt that might have clinched it.

And with the pressure of holding a one-shot lead as he went after his first PGA Tour win, Koepka smashed his driver 331 yards down the middle of the fairway.

Arizona State junior Jon Rahm closed with a 68 to tie for fifth. It was the best finish by a Sun Devil still on the golf team playing in the Phoenix Open. The previous best was a tie for 32nd by Phil Mickelson.

However, the top 10 does not get the Spaniard into Torrey Pines next week because he is an amateur.

Canada’s Graham DeLaet also cracked the top 10. The Weyburn, Sask. native finished with a share of 7th at 11-under.

The finish is DeLaet’s best since the RBC Canadian Open at Royal Montreal, where he also tied for 7th.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Martin Laird watched the ball disappear into the cup on the par-3 16th hole and put some elbow grease into his fist pump.

It certainly wasn’t the most exciting moment on golf’s most raucous hole. That belonged to Francesco Molinari, who made the first hole-in-one at the 16th on Saturday at the Phoenix Open since Tiger Woods in 1997.

But it was plenty important to Laird.

On the verge of dropping another shot and watching his lead dwindle, Laird followed that 10-foot par putt with a birdie on the 17th and another par save on the 18th to finish off a 3-under 68 and take a three-shot lead into the final round.

Next up is another round with a new pair from the next generation.

Laird, a 32-year-old Scot who has lived in Scottsdale the last 14 years, played in the final group Saturday with two 21-year-old rookies, Justin Thomas and Daniel Berger. Chasing him Sunday will by Hideki Matsuyama, the 22-year-old from Japan who is No. 18 in the world, and 24-year-old power hitter Brooks Koepka.

“This might just be the way it is,” Laird said of the increasingly evident youth movement. “When they come out, they’re ready to go. They don’t need three or four years to get used to the tour life or used to the golf courses. I don’t think they get intimidated at all anymore.”

Laird was at 13-under 200 as he goes for his fourth PGA Tour victory.

Matsuyama, already with seven wins worldwide, birdied his last four holes to surge into contention with a 63. Koepka finally managed to find the fairways, made birdie on both par 5s on the back nine and shot 64. They were at 203 with Zach Johnson, who shot a 67.

Laird at least has a cushion, which might not have been the case without those key par putts, especially on the 16th.

He pulled his tee shot into the water on the par-5 15th and made bogey, which can feel like losing two shots. And then he stepped into the arena at the 16th, hit wedge at the flag from 133 yards and pulled it enough to go in a bunker. He blasted out to about 10 feet, though the putt had plenty of break.

“That was a big one,” he said. `You don’t want to make two bogeys in a row at two holes you’re looking at maybe making birdies on.”

He followed with a perfect pitch to 3 feet for birdie on the 17th, and finished his round with a 10-foot par save.

Molinari’s ace wasn’t for show. It carried him to a 64, and at 8-under 205, he was among 15 players still within five shots of the lead.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of that group was Jon Rahm of Spain, a junior at Arizona State playing this week on a sponsor’s exemption. He got the gallery on his side early, especially by wearing a Sun Devils jersey when he teed off on the 16th, and shot 66. Rahm was at 9-under 204, along with Ryan Palmer (68) and Thomas, who had four birdies over his last six holes to salvage a 69.

“I’m not surprised, but I didn’t expect it. Something between there,” Rahm said.

Laird played in the final group with Thomas and Berger, two players who were still in high school three years ago. That’s the way golf is shifting, players getting younger and more fearless. And that’s what Laird faces again on Sunday.

Matsuyama, who won the Memorial last year, was the first rookie to win the Japan Golf Tour money list. He played bogey-free, and it was his birdie streak at the end of the round that put him into contention. The best one of all was his 50-degree wedge into the 16th and a salute from the crowd.

Koepka is the Floridian who went to the far corners of the world to chase his card, starting at the Challenge Tour on Europe and then winning the Turkish Open last year. He was 3 over on the par 5s this week, his first tournament in nearly two months, and made up some ground Saturday. Koepka hit the fairway on two par 5s on the back nine, setting up simple up-and-down birdies, and he made birdie on the 17th.

“It’s just a little bit of rust, just not playing in two months,” Koepka said. “Felt like today I was finally comfortable. Being out there the last two days, it was almost like I was trying to find the driver a little bit.”

Even with an overcast sky and cool temperatures, TPC Scottsdale still had a big buzz. The hope was for a record attendance – as it had been all week – until Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson both missed the cut. The attendance was 159,906, some 40,000 short of the record last year.

But it was loud enough, especially the final hour.

“It shouldn’t be a struggle to get your adrenaline going,” Laird said.

Six-shots off the lead is Canada’s Graham DeLaet. The Weyburn, Sask. native is 7-under and tied for 17th.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Rain wasn’t the only thing that put a damper on the Phoenix Open on Friday.

The rowdiest event on the PGA Tour goes into Super Bowl weekend without Tiger Woods, who had the worst score of his career and missed the cut by 12 shots. Also gone is Phil Mickelson, who had his worst round on the TPC Scottsdale in six years.

Martin Laird carried on nicely without them.

Once the rain stopped, Laird played his best golf and he doesn’t think that was a coincidence. He ran off four birdies in a five-hole stretch until making his first bogey of the tournament on his final hole for a second straight 5-under 66.

That gave him a two-shot lead over Daniel Berger (69), with Justin Thomas (68) another shot behind. Both 21-year-old rookies received sponsor’s exemptions. A trio of Masters champions – Bubba Watson (71), Zach Johnson (70) and Angel Cabrera (69) were in the group four shots behind.

That’s not who the crowd came to see.

Woods was playing the Waste Management Phoenix Open for the first time in 14 years. “Welcome back!” the gallery shouted to him on Thursday. “Thanks for coming!” was the refrain on Friday as he walked off his final green with an 11-over 82.

It was his highest score in 322 official tournaments in his career.

“We all have days like this,” Woods said after a day unlike any other he has had in his career.

Mickelson had a 76, his highest score in this event since he opened with a 76 in 2009 and missed the cut. Neither are going to the Super Bowl. Mickelson flew home to San Diego, Woods to Florida, and both will meet up next week in Torrey Pines.

It was the first time since The Greenbrier Classic in 2012 that they missed the cut in the same event.

“Hopefully, we will be able to get it turned around for next week,” Mickelson said.

Laird would seem to thrive in such wet, chilly conditions based on his birth certificate alone. He was born in Scotland, though he played college golf at Colorado State and has been living in Arizona for the last 14 years. He didn’t even play a European Tour event until he had his PGA Tour card.

But living in Scottsdale, surely he has experience the occasional cold, steady rain like Friday.

“The weather is so good here, when the weather is like this we don’t play,” Laird said. “I really don’t remember a day where it’s just been that kind of drizzle. It was a very Scottish day today. We get rain, but it’s not sort of an all-day thing.”

Laird was at 10-under 132.

Look a little further down the leaderboard, and the absence of golf’s two biggest names – Woods and Mickelson – was another reminder that the sport is in the midst of a generational shift, assuming it hasn’t already happened.

Berger and Thomas are proudly part of the class of `11 – that’s high school, not college.

They played often together as juniors and at college – Berger at Florida State, Thomas at Alabama. Berger made it through Q-school after two years of college and easily earned his card through the Web.com Tour. Thomas did the same after leaving Alabama.

Not too far back was Canada’s Graham DeLaet. He scrambled his way to a 70 and was six shots behind.

Woods either stubbed his chips or bladed them, the worst of it coming from behind the fourth green. He had 35 feet to the flag, tried to hit a baby flop shot and sent it 47 yards away, leading to a double bogey.

Mickelson steadily dropped shots, tried to rally with a birdie on the 15th that put him one birdie away from making the cut, and then hit his tee shot in a bunker on the 17th that led to bogey. That bunker wasn’t even in play for Mickelson on Thursday, but the weather was such that players were hitting two or three clubs more.

Laird was part of the pack until his late run. He made a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-5 13th, hit wedge to a foot for birdie on the par-5 15th, and then made 7-foot birdie putts on the next two holes to give himself a little separation.

Ryan Palmer (72) and Ryan Moore (67) were in the group at 136, while Geoff Ogilvy (69) was among those five shots behind.

Fifteen players failed to finish the round before darkness. That included Arizona club pro Michael Hopper, who had no chance of making the cut. With two holes to play, he was at 12 over and needed to finish two pars to beat Woods.

And that would be another personal-worst for Woods. He has never finished last in a PGA Tour event.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Tiger Woods never shot a score this high in his 1,267 official rounds as a pro.

He never looked more lost on a golf course.

Woods hit wedges fat and thin, but never close. He hit one drive into the water, another into the base of a desert bush. And when he missed a 10-foot par putt on his final hole Friday in the Phoenix Open, he had the worst score of his career – an 11-over 82.

Woods was in last place when he headed home to Florida to try to fix a game in disarray, even behind Arizona club pro Michael Hopper, who had yet to tee off. It was the first time in his career that he missed the cut in consecutive PGA Tour events, the most recent one in August at the PGA Championship.

About the only thing he didn’t lose was his sense of humor.

“I’m just doing this so I don’t get fined,” Woods said with a smile as he faced the media, repeating Marshawn Lynch’s only line at Super Bowl media day.

Even so, this round might have been more painful than getting his tooth knocked out last week in Italy.

His previous worst score was an 81 in the third round at Muirfield in the 2002 British Open, where he caught the brunt of whipping rain in 40 mph wind. There was only a light drizzle in the Valley of the Sun, and Woods hit a low point in his career.

“We all have days like this,” Woods said. “Unfortunately, mine was in a public forum. We take the good with the bad, and the thing is, even on bad days like this, just keep fighting. On the good days, you’ve got to keep fighting, as well.”

He attributed his shocking play to his latest swing change, which he described in December as “new but old,” although this game resembles neither. He left Sean Foley during his four-month break to fully heal from back surgery and now has California-based Chris Como as a swing consultant.

“I was caught right between patterns, just old pattern, new pattern,” Woods said. “And I got better, more committed to what I was doing on my back nine and hit some better shots. But still got a lot of work to do.”

He scrapped plans to go to the Super Bowl and headed home to Florida to practice before returning next week to Torrey Pines.

The most glaring weakness remains the short game – chips, bunker play and putting.

Nothing was uglier than the par-3 fourth hole when his tee shot went over the green. The chip was difficult because he short-sided himself and was only 35 feet from the flag. Woods hit it 47 yards, the ball shooting low and hot all the way across the green and into a front bunker. He blasted out to 20 feet and two-putted for double bogey.

That was on his back nine, and by then, the only question was whether he would post the highest score of his career.

The damage came early.

Woods pulled his tee shot into the desert on the tough 14th hole and it turned into a scavenger hunt. He headed toward a ball on the left side of the desert only to realize it wasn’t his – it was Mike Weir’s tee shot on the 13th hole. He stepped into a bed of cactus, reached gingerly through the needles to get the ball and realized that wasn’t his, either. His was found at the base of a bush, and he had to take a penalty stroke to remove it.

Then, a stock pitch shot from short of the green barely reached the putting surface, and he two-putted from 40 feet for double bogey.

In the gray morning sky of light drizzle, he didn’t realize until after his tee shot on the 15th that it never cleared the water. Woods hit a mid-iron for his fourth shot into a left bunker, and then bladed that out so far over the green that only the rough on the other side kept it from going in the water. He flubbed that chip and took triple bogey.

The atmosphere on the par-3 16th was slightly muted, though that didn’t keep a row of rowdies in the bleachers from wearing ski masks over their faces, a tribute to the mask Woods was wearing in Italy to hide his missing tooth. He was watching girlfriend Lindsey Vonn win a record 63rd World Cup race.

Jordan Spieth, playing in the group with Woods and Patrick Reed, had a 68. Both are among several young players who grew up watching Woods dominate golf with 14 majors and 79 wins on the PGA Tour. They did not see him shoot 82.

“Sure, it’s odd,” Spieth said. “But it’s his second tournament in six months. He’s really revamping his golf swing and just seems like he needs some more repetitions. From the looks of it, he looks very healthy, looks like nothing was bothering him. So he should be able to get out there and get a lot of practice in. I would look for him to make a strong comeback this year.”

Woods played the Phoenix Open for only the fourth time, and the first time since 2001. He still managed to generate plenty of memories. There was the hole-in-one on the 16th hole in 1997, the fans moving a 1,000-pound boulder for him in 1999, a teenager throwing an orange across the green as he was putting in 2001.

And now an 82.

The support remained strong, but the message changed. What began on Thursday as “Welcome back,” turned into, “Thanks for coming.”

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Tiger Woods helped attract a record, raucous crowd to the Phoenix Open on Thursday, the first big event in a week that concludes with the Super Bowl.

They didn’t see much game – at least not from Woods.

In his first appearance at the TPC Scottsdale in 14 years – and only his second tournament in six months – Woods couldn’t hit the green with three chip shots and was near the bottom of the leaderboard until two key shots on the back nine salvaged a 2-over 73.

It was the first time in his career that Woods shot over par in his first round of the year. And he already was nine shots behind Ryan Palmer, who opened with a 7-under 64 to build a one-shot lead when play was suspended by darkness.

“This is my second tournament in six months, so I just need tournament rounds like this where I can fight through it, turn it around, grind through it and make adjustments on the fly,” Woods said.

He was 5 over through 11 holes when Woods hit a 5-iron to a foot for a tap-in eagle on the 13th hole. After making it through the par-3 16th hole, where he twice had to back off shots when someone shouted as he stood over the ball, he hit his best drive of the day that bounded onto the green at the par-4 17th and set up a two-putt birdie.

The fans didn’t seem to mind. They were happy to see golf’s biggest star at their outdoor party for the first time since 2001, back when Woods was No. 1 in the world and headed for an unprecedented sweep of the majors.

The attendance was 118,461 – more than the Super Bowl will get on Sunday – and broke the Thursday record at the Phoenix Open by just over 30,000.

What they saw was a player who suddenly has developed grave issues with his short game – particularly his chipping.

Woods is working with a new swing consultant, Chris Como, who is not in Phoenix this week. He still has trouble taking his game from the practice range to the golf course, which is nothing new. But when he last played, at the Hero World Challenge, what stood out was a series of chips that he either stubbed or bladed.

Two months later, nothing changed.

The focus on Woods quickly shifted from a chipped tooth to simply his chipping.

Woods twice chipped with 4-irons, which he called my “old-school shots from Augusta.” On two other occasions, one after a chip he knocked across and over the green, he opted for a putter. It wasn’t a bad play, but it used to be rare to see Woods choose to putt from the fairway instead of chip.

He attributed it to the change in his swing.

“I’m just having a hard time finding the bottom,” Woods said. “Because of my old pattern, I was so steep on it that I have a new grind on my wedge and sometimes it’s hard to trust. Some of my shots were into the green with tight pins and either I’ll flop it or bump it, one of the two. I chose to bump it.”

Palmer was 10-under par through 10 holes last week in the Humana Challenge and settled for a 61. He was 7 under through 12 holes on Thursday and then closed with six straight pars for a 64.

That gave him a one-shot lead over Keegan Bradley, who made seven birdies in the morning, and Masters champion Bubba Watson, whose tee shot on the 17th hole rolled a few inches from the cup and settled 4 feet away.

Woods was in the group ahead of him, and it’s customary for players to step aside when they’re on the 17th green to let the others hit their tee shots. Woods smiled when Watson approached and told him, “Good shot.”

Watson also got caught up in the crowd, a benefit of playing so close to Woods.

“I could feel his crowd was really big,” Watson said. “You could feel it, the energy, even with the weather the way it was. People still showed up. People still had a blast. And obviously, Tiger created a lot of that.”

Bradley could sense it, too, even though he played on the opposite side of the draw. Bradley finished his round on No. 9 and hit what he thought was a great approach, except that he wasn’t sure because no one was clapping. He turned to his caddie and asked him if it went over the green, or maybe even short of the green. And then he walked up to the green and saw it was 10 feet away. That’s when the light came on.

“Tiger was on the second green. No one was watching me,” Bradley said with a laugh. “It’s just amazing to see the draw that Tiger has. Wow, there was a lot of people.”

They saw some good golf – just not very often from Woods.

The crowd rose to its feet as Woods walked from the putting green to the first tee, and the anticipation began to build when the starter announced him as the winner of 79 PGA Tour events and 14 majors. He had 24 wins and five majors the last time he played.

And then Woods sent his tee shot off the backyard wall of a house and back into the desert. He made the turn in 39 – his age.

But he didn’t have to chip again on the back nine, played better, hit two great shots (for eagle and birdie) and walked off with reasonable hopes of making it to the weekend. Woods hasn’t played much of late from back injuries and recovery time. Even so, he made it clear that it could take time to heal – certainly quicker than getting his teeth fixed.

Another player on his game Thursday was Canada’s Graham DeLaet.

DeLaet lives in Scottsdale. “It’s nice to be home and doesn’t really feel like a tournament week until you get out here,” DeLaet said after a 67. “Sleeping in your own bed is always great.”

The Weyburn, Sask. native carded a 4-under 67.

Cory Renfrew – a Monday qualifier – was the only other Canadian to sit on the better side of par Thursday. The Victoria, B.C. native was 1-under with one hole remaining Thursday.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Robert Allenby feared the worst Thursday at the Phoenix Open in his first round since his mysterious misadventure in Hawaii.

Two days after saying he was preparing mentally for one of the toughest weeks of his life, Allenby drew only a few boos and comments on the rowdy par-3 16th stadium hole and the crowded 18th. He had mostly quiet, apathetic galleries in his round of 1-under 70.

On Tuesday, the 43-year-old Australian stood by his story that he was robbed and beaten after missing the cut two weeks ago in the Sony Open, basing the account on what he remembered and what he was told by a homeless woman who came to his aid. He said he has “no memory” from about 11:06 p.m. to 1:27 a.m. that night.

Honolulu police are investigating it as second-degree robbery. No arrests have been made.

“I was a little bit nervous going into 16,” Allenby said. “I wasn’t really sure what to expect. But I just knew it was going to be loud. I was just like, `You know what? Just go with the flow and have fun with it. Just don’t let it get to you.’

“And they were actually really good. I was actually really surprised,” he said. “They were fantastic. There was nothing mean at all. … I think some of the comments were actually pretty funny.”

He played through headaches.

“For some reason I had really bad headaches in my left eye before I teed off and I don’t know if that was just nerves, anticipation, what it was,” Allenby said. “But I took some (pain relievers), just to sort of take the edge off a little bit. It sort of went away a little bit. But it was there. It could be allergies, as well, with the desert.”

Allenby bogeyed the par-4 11th – his second hole of the day – after hitting his approach over the green, birdied the par-5 13th with a delicate downhill chip to 3 feet, and bogeyed the 16th after hitting into the right front bunker. On his final nine, he made an 8-foot birdie putt on the par-3 fourth and a 14-footer on the par-4 sixth.

“Felt a little bit nervous on the first nine holes,” Allenby said. “Just understandable with what’s been going on, and very hard to put it all to the side when you’re out there. I tried my absolute best and I think I did a really, really good job overall.”

Allenby has 22 worldwide titles, four on the PGA Tour. His last victories came in consecutive weeks in 2009 in the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa and Australian PGA.

SYDNEY – Kel Nagle, a former Canadian Open (1964) and British Open (1960) winner, as well as a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, has died. He was 94.

The PGA of Australia said in a statement Thursday that Nagle died overnight at a Sydney hospital. It did not give a cause of death.

The Australian golfer, who won a tournament every year for 26 years after turning professional in 1946, collected 61 victories on the PGA Tour of Australasia and two on the U.S. tour.

His win at St. Andrews came by one stroke over Arnold Palmer, who was attempting to win his third consecutive major that year after taking the Masters and U.S. Open.

Nagle finished second to Gary Player at the 1965 U.S. Open at Bellerive in St. Louis, losing an 18-hole playoff to the South African. Player said then that Nagle was “one of the best short-game players” he had seen.

Nagle also won the Australian PGA championship a record six times and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2007.

He also played on the PGA Senior Tour (now Champions Tour) in the United States in 102 events from 1981-1989.

Nagle’s other achievements included wins at the 1954 World Cup in Montreal and 1959 World Cup in Melbourne with partner Peter Thomson, a five-time British Open champion.

“It’s a sad day for golf, we’ve lost a champion of our game,” said PGA chief executive Brian Thorburn.

In 1980, Nagle was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the sport of golf and was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1986.

“Kel was a giant of the game,” said Golf Australia chief executive Stephen Pitt. “But much more than that, he was an ambassador for his sport and his country, universally liked and admired by his peers.”

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – A defiant and at times angry Robert Allenby stood by his story Tuesday that he was robbed and beaten in Honolulu, basing the account on what he remembered and what he was told by a homeless woman who came to his aid.

“There has definitely been a lot of confusion,” Allenby said. “But I think the No. 1 thing that you should all remember is that my story stays exactly the same as the way I told it. I told you what I knew, and I told you what someone told me. That’s the bottom line. I never lied to anyone.”

Honolulu police are investigating the Jan. 16 incident as second-degree robbery. No arrests have been made.

Allenby says he was at Amuse Wine Bar with his caddie and a friend from Australia on the night he missed the cut at the Sony Open. He said surveillance tape shows him leaving the bar with three people he doesn’t recognize, and that his next memory is being in a park. He said a homeless woman told him he had been thrown out of a trunk, which he said caused his injuries.

Allenby posted a photo of his bloodied forehead and a swollen eye to his private Facebook account. He said he was robbed of wallet and phone, though the credit card he used to pay for dinner and wine was still in his front pocket.

In the last week, however, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser quoted the homeless woman, Charade Keane, as saying she never told Allenby she saw him in a trunk and did not how he was injured. The newspaper quoted another homeless man in the park, Chris Khamis, as saying Allenby told him he was depressed and drugged at a strip club and that he passed out and hit his head on a lava rock.

Exactly what happened remains a mystery, even for Allenby. He said Tuesday he has “no memory in my brain” from about 11:06 p.m. to 1:27 a.m. on that date.

“I have been trying and overlooking and going backward and forward, and there is just nothing,” he said. “I can’t tell you how frustrating that is because we all want to know the truth.”

The 43-year-old Australian said headaches subsided a few days ago and he chose to play in the Phoenix Open to try to get his life back on track.

His face looked relatively clean as he spoke to reporters – his injuries drew more attention than any of his 22 wins around the world – and the crowd was even larger because the podium was in front of the caddie hospitality tent.

Allenby saved his anger for the media, whom he sarcastically claimed to be “amazing experts at investigations.”

“I was a victim, and all of a sudden you’re putting all the blame on me,” Allenby said. “I take full responsibility if I did do something wrong. … At the end of the day, I was in a place having a nice dinner and having a nice night, and then I became a victim. And now, it’s all been turned around.

“The police will come out with the right story.”

Pressed for details, Allenby kept referring to the 2 1/2-hour stretch where he blanked out. He previously told The Associated Press he had two receipts in his front pocket – along with his credit card used to pay for dinner and win – that were time stamped at 10:06 p.m. and 10:48 p.m.

Allenby said he was not drunk. “There’s no way in the world what I drank could do what was done to me – not a chance in the world,” he said. He also said he had blood tests to see if anything was detected in his system. He told the AP last week that doctors chose not to do a drug test the day after the incident because whatever was in his system likely would not be there for more than a few hours.

The photo, first shown on Golf Channel during the third round of the Sony Open, is what generated so much attention. Allenby said he posted it as a way to reach his family – he is divorced with a 15-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter – because he was so disoriented he couldn’t remember his phone number.

Tiger Woods, returning from his own dose of a photograph gone viral, was asked about Allenby before anyone quizzed him on how he lost his front tooth.

“I know he got beat up. I don’t know much about it. I just saw a quick headline,” Woods said. “I saw a photo. He didn’t look very good.”

Allenby has had a contentious relationship with the media throughout his career. He got into a public argument with fellow Melbourne native Geoff Ogilvy that Australian media said was close to a fight. And at the Presidents Cup in 2009 in San Francisco, he accused Anthony Kim of being out partying until the wee hours of the Sunday matches – this after Kim beat him in a singles match, 5 and 3.

The reception is gets at the TPC Scottsdale could be brutal. This is the rowdiest tournament of the year, especially at the par-3 16th that is set up like an arena.

“Mentally, I’m preparing myself for probably one of the toughest weeks of my life,” Allenby said. “It hasn’t been an easy week last week, and it wasn’t an easy decision to come to this tournament. But I thought that I need to get my life back on track. I’m a professional golfer. And why should I let controversy put me out of the game that I love?”