It’s time to pigeonhole El Pato. When Angel Cabrera won the 73rd Masters, he joined an elite club as one of just 14 active players with multiple major titles. The player known as “The Duck” for his waddling gait is one of a kind, but can you guess which member of the aforementioned fraternity his game, career, background and even backside most closely resemble.
First, you have to strike everybody off the list who owns three or more majors. At 39, Cabrera isn’t budding; he’s arrived. And given the magnitude of Sunday’s larceny at Augusta National, fate certainly doesn’t owe him anything.
Among the two-timers, Cabrera isn’t a one-trick major pony like Lee Janzen (1993 and 1998 U.S. Opens) or Jose Maria Olazabal (1994 and 1999 Masters). Winning different majors puts one in a different category, even if he can’t touch the more complete career numbers of Janzen (eight PGA Tour titles, including the 1995 Players) and particularly Olazabal (25 European and PGA Tour titles and seven Ryder Cups).
Nor is Cabrera a true late-bloomer like Mark O’Meara. Sure, the Argentine has collected both of his majors (also 2007 U.S. Open) at the brink of 40. But nobody expected it. There was no long-suffering involved. O’Meara, on the other hand, had won 14 times and made 56 major starts before his breakout Slam victories at the age of 41 in 1998 (Masters and British Open).
In terms of quotability quotient, perhaps Cabrera is most like South Africa’s Retief Goosen, a two-time U.S. Open champion (2001, 2004) with a personality so bland he can’t give away an autograph.
Actually, that’s not fair to either player. Goosen is far more accomplished, with 18 total European and PGA Tour victories, including a Tour Championship. And Cabrera is far more interesting, even via interpreter.
There’s only one player whose profile comes close to Cabrera’s, and it is shockingly similar. Like Cabrera, this guy is a massively long off the tee, can’t see his spikes at address and has won only five times while twice taking bows on golf’s grandest stages.
Cabrera is John Daly without the addictions.
Even the blue-collar, soap-opera stuff that America loves so much about Daly applies to Cabrera.
The illegitimate son of a handyman (Miguel) and a maid (Luisa) who split up when he was still an infant, Cabrera was raised in Cordoba, Argentina, by his paternal grandmother. He dropped out of school in first grade to pursue his ambitions as a caddie and golfer. And at 16, he moved in with his 26-year-old girlfriend. Jerry Springer is salivating.
Of course, Cabrera is still married to that woman (Sylvia), and the eldest of the couple’s two sons (20-year-old Federico) turned pro last year and regularly beats his old man already.
And while Daly is pitied by most of his countrymen, Cabrera is celebrated as one of Argentina’s ultimate sportsmen. With his victory at the Masters, he has now officially supplanted Roberto De Vicenzo as the greatest golfer in South American history and provided a sense of closure for De Vicenzo’s scorecard debacle at the 1968 Masters.
“He gave me a frame where he has in his hand a green jacket,? Cabrera said after the Masters of the Argentine standout. ?He says, ’I hope this gives you luck so someday you can bring back a green jacket for yourself.’”
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