Robert Allenby confrontation allows Tom Fraser to become PGA caddie for a day

— -- Tom Fraser had never carried someone else's golf bag before in his life, never even played in a pro-am tournament before he and a buddy, Lee McNaughton, found themselves standing at the turn at the Canadian Open while playing hooky from work Thursday. That's when 61-year-old Fraser, a bespectacled man with gray-flecked hair and an amiable grin, noticed that Australian pro Robert Allenby was carrying his own golf bag and his caddie's bib.

But Allenby's caddie was nowhere in sight.

"Robert had a conversation with a PGA official maybe 5 yards away from me," Fraser told ESPN by phone Friday. "And he said he was in a bit of a controversy; his caddie had walked off the course. So, I raised my hand and said, 'Why, I'll carry your clubs, Robert,' and my buddy said, 'He's a golfer -- well, not a very good one.' Anyway, Robert said 'Yeah, come on,' and invited me inside the ropes. And off we went."

Off they went.

Who knew it was that easy to become a PGA Tour caddie for a day?

There have been stories in the past of fans who've crashed major league baseball games by running across the field and sliding into a base. There was that time, years ago, when a prankster briefly sneaked into an NBA layup line before he was caught. There are numerous examples of frustrated tennis pros resorting to that old gag of giving a ball boy or ball girl their racket to play a point when things are going really, really badly.

There are even a few instances of PGA or LPGA golfers and caddies splitting up in midround -- one of the most recent was Jessica Korda canning her caddie during the 2013 Women's U.S. Open, then pulling her boyfriend from the crowd to finish the round with her.

But in Allenby's case, caddie conflicts tend to happen a lot.

Allenby became involved in a dispute and parting of the ways Thursday with caddie Mick Middlemo. It marked the fourth time that the 44-year-old Australian has had a caddie walk off the course during a round.

Allenby has somewhat replaced John Daly as one of the more peculiar personalities on the PGA tour since January, when he turned up badly bruised after missing the cut at the Sony Open in Honolulu. Allenby claimed he was "abducted" and roughed up before being saved by a homeless woman; others said he got drunk and hurt himself in a fall, allegedly after a big night at a strip club.

So what happened with Middlemo? Allenby claimed their differences started with a disagreement over club selection, and that Middlemo "threatened" him as their argument escalated.

But Middlemo, in an account confirmed to ESPN.com by a source walking with the group, said no, it all started when Allenby blamed him for a shot into the water on the Par-5 13th hole, then called him a string of obscenities and eventually threatened to have him "banned for life" from the tour.

"There's a lot as a caddie I can take but a personal attack like that. ... If this was an office in any country in the world, that would be considered bullying," Middlemo said.

Fraser admittedly didn't know any of that when he volunteered to help Allenby. It might not have mattered to Fraser, anyway. He works as the principal at an adult day school for prison inmates who are housed at minimum- to maximum-security level facilities in Kingston, Ontario, which is about a three-hour drive from where the Canadian Open is being played at Glen Abbey Golf Club near Toronto.

The fact that Fraser even had the daring to volunteer to help Allenby suggests he's not an easily dissuaded sort.

"If you don't ask, you'll never know, right?" Fraser laughs. "All they can say is no."

Fraser says his second stroke of good luck, besides being in the right place at the right time when Middlemo left, was that he'd actually worn his golf shoes to the course that day. Which is unusual. "I usually wear flip-flops," Fraser says with a laugh. "And I'm not sure if he would have said yes to me if I was wearing my flip-flops."

Fraser says it wasn't until he and Allenby were walking down the first fairway together that he broke the news to Allenby that he, um ... why he ... heh, heh -- he'd never actually caddied before anywhere and didn't really know what to do. But Allenby was perfectly fine with that -- and with raking his own bunker after hitting a shot into the sand on a subsequent hole.

Allenby explained to Fraser that PGA Tour rules prohibited him from carrying his own clubs. Fraser then asked Allenby to just tell him where to stand and what to do to stay out of his way. And that's how it went. Things got off to a terrific start when Allenby birdied their first hole together.

And the surreal experiences started to mount for Fraser after that.

He later learned McNaughton was texting the three other buddies that they were attending the tournament with to tell them what Fraser was doing. "But for some reason," Fraser says, "they misunderstood the texts and thought Lee wrote 'someone who looks like Tom' was carrying Allenby's bag. Then when they found out no, no, it was me, they said, 'BULL---!' "

But it was true, all right.

Fraser says his other buddies finally caught up with Allenby's group around Allenby's 15th hole, and he gave his late-arriving pals the thumbs up sign a couple of times. When they finally got within earshot of Fraser, as he and Allenby crossed a fairway three holes from the end of the round, Fraser -- lapsing into his best Stevie Williams impression -- told them, "Hey, hey there, no photos please, eh?" And they all busted up laughing.

Fraser, who is about a 12-handicapper himself, says being inside the ropes gave him a whole new appreciation of the game. Getting a close-up view left him marveling at nearly everything -- the crack of the ball when Allenby and the others drilled drives off the tees, the way they wafted their iron shots onto the greens and the way they thought their way around the course.

The other caddies and Allenby's playing partners introduced themselves by the end of their first hole together -- "I thought that was nice," Fraser said -- and if anyone else noticed, "I didn't figure out the double-strap on Robert's bag until about the seventh hole," Fraser laughs, they were too nice to say anything to the rookie.

Fraser also says Allenby never brought up what happened between him and his departed caddie during the nine holes they spent together. The most chit-chat they exchanged was when Allenby asked Fraser where he lived, and Fraser learned that Allenby lives in Florida much of the year now and is engaged to be married in October. Best of all, they never came close to getting into a tiff themselves, though Fraser says his confidence actually grew to the point he took the liberty of cleaning Allenby's ball here and there about three holes from the finish.

Anything else?

"Well ... at the end of the round, I realized Robert was plus-6 at the turn and he was plus-3 with me," Fraser says.

Not bad.

Once Allenby putted out to end his round, he and Fraser walked to the scorer's tent together. Then they took a few photos, shook hands and went their separate ways.

Fraser and his buddies had a few beers to celebrate and rehash what had just happened. Then they went back on the course to watch more golf. He consented to an interview with a local golf magazine, then another with Canada's Global Sports network though he realized it was going to blow his cover at work. "I booked off as sick, then there I am on Global TV, so ... yeah, I'll have to fix that -- caught red-handed. But it's all good," Fraser laughs. "I'll deal with it."

He swears he didn't mind that Allenby didn't offer to tip him after the round, or even give him a box of balls, a golf glove, anything.

"Oh, no," Fraser insists. "I thanked him for the opportunity. It was the experience of a lifetime."

But Fraser being Fraser, he did leave Allenby with a final thought.

"I said, 'Listen, if you need a caddie tomorrow, I'm available," Fraser said, breaking into a laugh. "You never know if you don't ask, right?"