QUITE a menagerie is descending on Wentworth next week, what with a tiger, a goose(n) and a duck. The latter is the rather perplexing nickname given to Ángel “El Pato” Cabrera, who is waddling back to the scene of his biggest tournament win, the BMW Championship last season.
Perhaps Cabrera is called Duck because it is what people shout when he reaches for his driver. They talk about “Tiger-proofing” golf courses to make it more difficult for the world No 1, but Cabrera is the longest hitter around. In 2001, he became the first European Tour player to end the year with an average driving distance of 300 yards.
This year his average drive is more than 305 yards, but he is ranked 143rd for both driving accuracy and for putting. Still, he must have been doing something right to achieve top ten finishes at the Open and the Masters this season.
Cabrera was born in Córdoba, Argentina, and got his training as a caddie at the home club of Eduardo Romero, the famous Argentine golfer who financed Cabrera’s attempts to qualify for the European Tour, which he achieved in 1996.
While his number of professional wins is on the low side for a player who reached No 9 in the world last year, he has a good record in team events, losing only once in five matches at the Presidents Cup last year, winning all his Alfred Dunhill Cup matches for Argentina in 1997 and coming second, with Romero, in the 2000 World Cup. Now he just has to learn how to play well for himself.
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FACT FILE
Age: 37
Nationality: Argentinian
Wins: 14, including BMW Championship last season
Major wins: 0
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Major record in 2006: Masters: tied 8th; US Open: tied 26th; Open: 7th; US PGA: tied 71st
World ranking: 21
How he qualified for World Match Play: Fifteenth on the Major Championship ranking
Previous WMP experience: Two appearances in 2004 and 2005, when he reached semi-finals