Paul Lewis: Chainsmoking Cabrera no choker

It's a shame Angel Cabrera has given up smoking. Strange thing to say, admittedly, but there will probably not be a stronger piece of sports theatre than last weekend's Masters golf tournament and the portly, gym-averse Cabrera was right at the heart of it.

Sport is a science these days, you see. Fitness rules. So it should. There is no doubt fitness prevails. It sharpens the mind, the skills, the temperament, not to mention stamina. Everything from golf to rugby to shooting to snooker. It's not just the survival of the fittest, it's the triumph of the fittest probably 90 per cent of the time - with the possible exception of darts.

That's why it's so charming when a sportsman like Cabrera wins. He's a drinker. He's a smoker - until recently when he gave it up. His US Open victory was accompanied by the unusual sight of Cabrera chainsmoking.

His idea of a good time is a drink in the bar, a prodigious feed and maybe another bar. Fitness is to Cabrera what taxation was to Leona Hemsley (the Queen Of Mean billionairess, who gloried in not paying taxes and who left US$12 million to her Maltese terrier when she died ... ).

There can be no stronger sign of Cabrera's unfashionable mien when you learn his nickname is "the duck" as opposed to the Tiger nickname of that Eldrick Woods bloke. One is a majestic, clever, snarling, imposing predator. The other is a kind of flying rat which eats anything, craps in the water, and is good for filling duvets.

Called 'the duck' because of his big, wide feet which were unshod when he was growing up, Cabrera is a classic rags-to-riches story. Born into a desperately poor family in Cordoba, Argentina, he was raised by his grandma and didn't finish primary school, moving into caddying to earn a crust - almost literally - and which blossomed into playing the game and then playing for money.

Even that's not really the point. Cabrera knows who and what he is. There are no frills; no hamming it up; no seeking of the limelight. In the post-Masters interview, he looked like a man who would rather be stuffing burning candles up his nostrils than being on TV.

He is not a talker. Nor is he a choker. His win came because he did what many sportsmen do not - he had a crack. He'd flogged his drive on the first play-off hole into the trees. The commentators, all sensible golfers and probably the golfing gods were urging him to dink the ball sideways, back into the fairway and to hope for the best.

Nuh-uh. He aimed the ball at a tiny hole in the trees and tried to hook it towards the hole. Death or glory. Rip, shit or bust, as the Kiwi saying has it. He was playing to win.

It didn't work. There came that horrible, woody "pock" sound that a golf ball makes when it hits a tree. It was the sound of disaster, a resonating requiem of his hopes.

Except the ball ricocheted out into the fairway, a calm Cabrera hit a pressure approach shot and nailed the putt - starting the final thaw in the meltdown that was Kenny Perry.

Yet Perry knows who he is too. At the press conference afterwards, Perry - another who does not have abs - was unfailingly honest when faced with some hard questions that stemmed from him being two up with two holes to play, only to lose his way tragically and fall to Cabrera.

For a start, this guy applauded Cabrera's comeback. There's a thing. You applaud the guy who might beat you. Afterwards, Perry showed he knew who he was: "Great players make it happen, and your average players don't. So that's the way it is."

This is not to suggest, for a moment, that Perry is an average player. Hardly. He has won nearly US$30 million in his career and has finished top 10 in a major six times since 1996. But he is comfortable in his skin; secure in the knowledge that, if the worst thing in his life is blowing the Masters, he's had it pretty good.

He counted his blessings, he reminded the picky journalists. A lot of people were struggling, he'd just made a small fortune, so save the sympathy for someone who needed it.

After the press conference, the 48-year-old Perry headed off to ring his Mum. She's got cancer, see.





One who doesn't know who he is is Sergio Garcia. Now wearing that hated mantle of the best player never to win a major, Garcia spat the dummy big-time after a poor round and complained that Augusta was not a good course and you got mud on the ball even in the fairway (there had been a storm two days before).

Perry also got mud on the ball (it affects its flight) in his ill-fated shot to the green during the playoff against Cabrera. Only he never mentioned it.

The late, great British sportswriter Peter Wilson once wrote that boxing and Olympic track & field were the only pure sports. "Man either fights or runs away. The rest are contrived."

Maybe golf deserves to join that group. There is nowhere to run; to hide. If you play a bad shot or choke, there is no one else to blame - no referee, no administrators, no faulty team-mates, no cheating opposition.

So the next time you hear a coach ranting at an injustice, a star having a tantrum or negotiating his or her contract and pleading poverty, remember Cabrera and Perry.

They stand as living proof that sport might well develop character - but not as much as character develops character.