RENO - Michael Allen has been active on the PGA Tour since 1988, but has never won a PGA Tour event.
Allen, who turned 50 this past January, decided to try his luck on the Champions Tour recently. His first and only start was the PGA Senior Championship and, bingo, he won the event.
"You know, that was obviously just a great thing for me to go out and not get run over by the guys who have beaten me my whole life," Allen said Wednesday afternoon at Montreux Golf & Country Club in preparation for the opening of the 11th annual Legends Reno-Tahoe Open. "That was fun.
"I'm totally looking forward to that, set me up to just look forward to winning out here now. That's my main goal, to win here. Where I went to school, it would be just a wonderful thing. That's really why I'm here. I want to come out here and compete and beat all these guys out here."
If Allen, a 1982 University of Nevada, Reno graduate, does win this week, he would be the first golfer to win a PGA event after winning a Champions Tour event.
"That would mean I've finally accomplished the goal I've always set out to do, which is to win on the PGA Tour," Allen said. "It's just interesting how circumstances set them up, it's taken me winning the Champions Tour event first. My mother said I was a slow learner, just didn't tell me how slow.
"They (Champions Tour players) were kind of happy for me. But they were thinking I should stick a lot more time out here. So that was good. And then these guys out here think I should go over there. So it's been really nice. I mean, everybody's been really happy for me."
Despite the success on the Champions Tour, Allen made it clear he would still prefer to play against the younger players. He did get a one-year exemption for winning the Senior PGA, so he could play some on both tours next year, assuming he finishes in the top 125 on the money list. He is 138th in FedEx points and 132 on the money list. A win here would certainly qualify him for the playoffs and give him a two-year PGA exemption.
"My goal is get into the FedEx Cup events and play as many of those as I can," Allen said. "It's an important thing. They're big tournaments. That's my goal right now, besides winning this, make sure I get into those things.
"I've been working hard for it all year. Things haven't gone as well as I would have liked, but I've been in the ballgame every week. I gotta finish a few of these tournaments off coming in. This is where I'm going to focus most of my attention."
Allen added that he wants to compete against the best players in the world, and that's what drives him.
Allen is one of four former Wolf Pack players in the field, joining Kirk Triplett, Charlie Wi and Rich Barcelo. Bill Lunde, Chris Riley and Charley Hoffman represent UNLV.
Is the rivalry a friendly one?
"It's not friendly at all," Allen said, smiling. "We want to kick their butt, are you kidding me? Most of the guys out here, you're friends with all the time. But you've got to try to defend home turf here, us Reno guys. It's important. We want to win out here, certainly beat the UNLV guys."
Allen played in the Wednesday pro-am, and was treated to howling winds, which are expected to be around today, too.
"Well, I'm really looking to see how the course is playing; how the greens are chipping to and how fast they are," Allen said. "Up here, you've got to keep trying to figure out how far the ball's flying with different types of shots and obviously how the greens are releasing. It's a nice opportunity to be able to go out and see how the course is playing. That's what I'm really trying to do mostly today."
Allen did say that playing Montreux can be brutal at times because of the wind, altitude and greens. He said some players will use local caddies because of that.
"This is a hard week in that if you're not from here," he said. "There are just so many numbers that you don't normally get. Normally you get (distance to) the front, (distance to) the pin and maybe a little elevation.
"Then you get that here, and then you get the altitude. I mean, it's a mathematical friggin' nightmare out here. You're trying to add all these things up. Add the wind in, with the downhill, with the elevation and altitude and a lot of numbers going on."