Cabrera wins one for the everyman in golf

As with any major championship Tiger Woods doesn't win, there will be ample debate about whether this U.S. Open was good for golf, if a second straight unexpected winner in the game's biggest events is more likely to drive or hinder interest.

It should take a lot less analysis to see that Angel Cabrera's victory Sunday was at least good for golfers.

Really, who could somebody watching that tournament associate with more, the guy who was making his first breakthrough at the game's highest level or the one closing in on a record for such golf excellence?

Who did Joe Driving Range have more in common with, somebody who obviously knows his way around the clubhouse buffet and power-dragged Malboros between shots or the fitness freak whose abs are harder than the shafts in his irons and whose idea of an on-course snack is an energy bar? Any Sunday blitz is full of guys with Cabrera's slumped shoulders and swollen midsection. But Woods, who has either gone to smaller shirts or bigger muscles, doesn't look like anybody you've ever seen getting out of a cart at a public course.

And who could we all better identify with, the player who looked terrified of being in contention, whose facial expressions told the importance of every shot better than any scoreboard could, or the android who never appears to get rattled by the demands of golf? Woods might let his emotions out after a bad shot, but he never lets them prevent him from preparing for the next one. And he is never in a situation that seems too big for him. Cabrera looked like he was in one of those all day Sunday, right up until he managed to beat back nerves that seemed to be running twice as fast as Oakmont's greens.
So this Open, with its over-par parade and off-the-rack champion, might have seemed to humanize PGA Tour players. It might seem to show that they too can struggle with a game that eventually beats everybody who plays it.

In reality, though, it was another indication of just how different players at that level are than everybody else. The USGA will be alternately celebrated and criticized for a U.S. Open setup that once again humbled the world's best. It always is.

But perhaps what's most remarkable is that Oakmont didn't completely abuse the field, that the scores weren't even higher. There were only eight rounds under par all week, but there were none in the 90s. And, believe it or not, that's saying something. At the start of the Open, Vijay Singh predicted the winning score would be 10 over par. Tiger said a 10-handicapper playing that course under those conditions for four days would not break 100 on any of them.

Then the field goes out and plays just about the same as it has in the U.S. Open for years, with the winning score the same as last year.
It wasn't pretty golf. But it was pretty impressive under the circumstances.

And it's not hard to find reasons to be impressed by Cabrera, who won by banging drives that went 311 yards on average and hitting more greens than all but two players in the field. And by making a delicate two-putt on the 72nd hole and posting 25 percent of the tournament's sub-par rounds.
Most impressive of all, though, was how human he made a U.S. Open champion seem, how he not only beat the final-round tension but that he showed how much he actually felt it.
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Tags: golf, golfing, golfers, cabrera