United States team captain, Fred Couples, recently expressed surprise that Robert Allenby was one of Greg Norman's picks in the International team for the Presidents Cup.

Well he wasn't the only one.

At the time he announced Allenby and Aaron Baddeley as his two discretionary selections, Norman said: "The reason why I picked Robert is his performances around Royal Melbourne over the years have been extraordinary.

"I do believe at one time he won by 10 shots. His love for the golf course is very, very much evident.  He's still playing the golf course there.  He's a great team player.  He has a lot of tenacity in these team competitions.  His spirit in the locker room or cabin with the other guys is very, very high, and so he was an automatic pick for me."

Well, we've scoured the record books and we can't find any mention of this supposed 10-shot victory. And as for the team player bit, and his great tenacity in team competitions, we couldn't find much evidence of that either.

Allenby's record is 8-14-2 in five editions of the Presidents Cup, which means he's won 8, drawn 2, and lost 14 - or gained his team 9 points out of a possible 24. Whichever way you cut and dice that, it's not flattering form.

And hardly represents a compelling reason for selection.

While acknowledging Allenby's shot-making and ball-striking, which remain a thing of beauty, the fact remains his putting is rubbish - as it has been for years now. And, as a result, he's lost the ability to 'go low', to really shoot the lights out.

He finished the season with eight consecutive cuts which denotes great consistency but in the Presidents Cup format it's not consistency you want but fireworks. That's to say the ability to string together a run of birdies. Because it's birdies that count, especially in the four-ball format where every player is going hell for leather, not a round of pars.

Couples' remarks came after Norman had criticised Tiger Woods' selection, saying he didn't think the fallen world No.1 had done enough to deserve his place as one of the US captain's picks.

Couples countered with: "I have no problem with Greg. He can say whatever he wants, but I'm not really into that. I play golf with my clubs. Robert Allenby is his (captain's) pick, and Aaron Baddeley, and they're Australians and I think they're great picks. But I think I can sit here and say Robert Allenby hasn't won a tournament in 10 years.''

Ouch.

But that is only true if you look at golfing success in terms of the US PGA Tour, when Allenby's last victory did indeed come at the Pennsylvania Classic 10 years ago. But he has had seven wins elsewhere since then, including our own Triple Crown - the Masters, PGA and Open - in 2005.

Still, that was six years ago. 

And as for this love of Royal Melbourne, sure he's played a lot at the fabled sandbelt layout - and his second placing as an amateur in the 1991 Australian Open is still talked about - but he's only won there once and that was in the 1993 Players Championship when he beat Wayne Grady in a playoff. That was 18 years ago.

This season, he was ranked 175th on the US Tour for Overall Putting and had 61 three-putt greens in 84 rounds, giving  him one of the highest three-putt percentages on tour. He ranked 102nd in eagles scored and 92nd in average birdies per round and finished 59th on the moneylist with US$1.45 million.

So, all in all, we reckon The Shark is on very thin ice in criticising Woods' selection. As far as we can tell, there's no good reason to support his choice of Allenby, apart from using him as a 'tour guide' for the three Koreans who've not played Royal Melbourne before.   

With Allenby and Baddeley included as players #11 and #12, the International Team will have five Australians for the fifth time in event history, while four countries represented (Australia, Japan, South Africa, South Korea) by the team is the fewest in history.

Maybe Allenby's spot should have gone to someone like, say, Argentina's Andres Romero. Just for example.

Sure, he's a bit wild and woolly with the driver - not a huge problem around the expanses of Royal Melbourne - but the Argentine putts like a demon and scores a poultice of birdies. While Allenby languishes in 92nd place for average number of birdies per round, Romero is at No.13.

And, in a competition that's largely about foursomes and fourball, that's good enough for us.