AUGUSTA, Ga. — Another Masters is in the two books that count with major championships — the record and history books. And while the dogged victory on Sunday by Ángel Cabrera of Argentina may not have seemed like it in the hot rush of sudden death, it has the potential to be among the most historic of the 73 Masters contested.
Angel Cabrera hails from a country of 40 million people that has its challenges but is ripe for golf expansion. More Photos »
Multimedia
Like all things at the Masters, Cabrera’s victory over Chad Campbell of Texas and Kenny Perryof Kentucky — not to mention Tiger Woods, the world No. 1, and Phil Mickelson, the world No. 2 — is best viewed in the context of history. In 1987, the last time a Masters was decided by a three-way playoff, the result was provincially popular while eliciting mostly shrugs from the worldwide audience.
Larry Mize, an Augusta native, fine player and very nice fellow, first dispatched the hugely popular Spaniard Seve Ballesteros, then hit Australia’s Greg Norman, the Great White Shark, with the golf equivalent of a bang stick by holing a pitch across the 11th green. This made for great television in the United States but did little to thrill the world.
Now consider the impact of Cabrera, the rugged, powerful and galumphing golfer from Cordoba, Argentina. He hails from a country of 40 million people with a high literacy rate that is wired to the max — roughly one cellphone per person, according to a 2007 survey. Like most global economies, Argentina’s has its challenges but is a country ripe for golf expansion.
And expanding the reach of the game is a high priority for the people who oversee all the details of the best-run tournament in golf. The chairman, Billy Payne, spent a significant portion of his prepared remarks last week talking about the club’s focus on the need to reach out to countries that fit the profile for golf expansion.
At the moment, the primary focus is on Asia. With the issuance of a Masters invitation to the 2010 Asian Amateur Championship, the Masters hopes to begin a trend.
“Through time the Asian Amateur Championship will provide a way to measure the effectiveness of role model creation on the growth of the game,” Payne said. “And if successful, as we hope and expect it will be, will cause us to seek similar partnerships and opportunities around the world.”
The idea of being a role model is not one that instantly occurred to the newly minted Masters champion. When first asked about the effect the win might have on his home country, Cabrera replied through a translator, “I play for myself.” Something might have been lost in the translation because he had a different reply the next time he was asked in the context of what his victory might do to help ease the memory of what happened in 1968 to his fellow Argentine Roberto De Vicenzo, who signed an incorrect scorecard and was penalized a stroke that cost him a playoff with the winner, Bob Goalby.
“First, De Vicenzo had bad luck,” Cabrera said. “He had a bad moment. It’s not going to change what happened to him. This win, to take back to Argentina, it’s going to help a lot with our game.”
This Masters closed one era and opened another. After 52 years, the South African Gary Player, the original international winner of the Masters, said that he would no longer compete in the event he won three times. Player’s legacy here is enormous. Consider that 22 years ago, the same year Mize won the last three-way playoff, Player spotted a young boy while playing golf in Cape Town.
“I looked out and there was this little 5-year-old boy, no teeth in the front of his mouth, and he looked up and he said to me, ‘Mr. Player, I love golf.’ So I picked him up like this and I put him in my arms and I said, ‘Man, give me a hug.’ ”
Player introduced that boy, Trevor Immelman, 27, at this year’s Champions Dinner at the Augusta National clubhouse. South Africa, a small country, had seven players in the Masters this year in a field of 96. There was one other Argentinian, Andrés Romero.
This week in Cordoba, Cabrera will play in the Abierto del Centro, a big tournament he dreamed of winning when he was a child. It should be quite an affair. When Cabrera won the United States Open in 2007, there was a huge crowd awaiting his arrival at the airport and a parade in his honor.
One day, in time, the winner of the Argentine Amateur might receive an invitation to the Masters. If and when that happens, it will be in large measure because of a man whose unusual gait caused him to be known affectionately as el Pato, the Duck. He may want to consider another nickname. The Duck does not quite have the ring of, say, the Hawk or Tiger, or Golden Bear.
But now that the man who wears the name also wears a green jacket, el Pato might become a very popular moniker.
