Is Cabrera the least-talented two-time

major winner of modern era?

FROM THE CBS SPORTS.COM WEBSITE
CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling and Charlotte Observer columnist and golf writer Ron Green junior take a lookback at the Masters.

1. OK, the huzzahs and cheers at Augusta National have finally faded. Is Angel Cabrera the least-talented two-time major winner of the modern era?
Steve Elling: Let's put this victory in perspective. Since playing in the Masters last year, Cabrera had one top 10 finish, and it was a T9 in a weenie event called the Africa Open. In the two weeks before the Masters, he missed the cut at Bay Hill and Houston.
Long known as one of the globe's most talented players as far as his complete arsenal of shots, he has never been a hard worker, which is probably why he has only three European Tour wins despite 14 years as a member.
Andy North won three times, including two majors, but was dogged by injuries and multiple surgeries.
No need to belabour the self-destructive career of John Daly, another two-time major winner with a scant résumé elsewhere.
Cabrera might not lead the list of craziest two-time Major winners, but he's in the discussion.
Ron Green, junior: I can't say he is the least talented two-time major winner in the modern era. I'm not sure who is, but I don't think it's Cabrera. From our perspective, we just don't know much about him. He is an enigma to us.
Obviously, Cabrera has enormous power and will. Before the final round at Augusta, I thought he was the least likely of the three players at the top to crack under the pressure. He might not play well but he doesn't seem to scare. He stared down Tiger and Jim Furyk at Oakmont, dealt with Tiger and Phil again at the Masters and then, when he should have been done on the back nine -- three down with six to play -- he found a way to win.
Cabrera has developed a talent for winning majors.
2 You guys were both out there when Tiger Woods made that killer double bogey to start the third round, and though he eventually got within a shot of the lead after his rally on Sunday, what was your estimation of his play last week?
Steve Elling: I was both underwhelmed by his play and shocked he was able to spackle together enough of a swing Sunday to make a run at the title. I wandered around with Woods for nine holes in his first two rounds, and it's hard to pick any part of his game that was clicking. More surprising than his rally was the fact he didn't maim anybody with one of his wayward tee shots. Particularly troubling were the number of pulls and hooks off the tee because the left side isn't supposed to be in play when he's swinging properly. He hit three scorching hooks that I recall off the top of my head.
Tiger has a lot of cleaning up to do before he makes his next start, presumably in Charlotte, where he won in 2007, in two weeks.
Ron Green, junior: I think Tiger told us all we needed to know about his play at Augusta when he called it "terrible" and said he nearly won the Masters with a "Band-Aid swing." It's not what I expected to see.
After his win at Bay Hill, it seemed things were back to normal but he hit it wide left more often than I do. He never looked comfortable during the Masters. The past few years in this tournament he hasn't made enough putts to win, but this time his ball-striking wavered.
I'm not enough of a swing theorist to know if he has gotten too flat but I know he's no different from the rest of us in one sense -- if he's not sure where it's going, that's not a good thing.
3. What did you think of Cabrera's decision to go for the green on the first playoff hole, and the resulting carom into the fairway, despite being badly blocked by trees?
Steve Elling: With his foes in the fairway, I guess he had to give it a rip. But in a decade of covering golf as a primary beat, I have never seen a luckier shot at a more crucial time at a major.
He basically closed his eyes, swung a four-iron as hard as he could and hoped the ball scooted up somewhere near the green. Instead, off a tree and into the fairway? Recall an hour earlier, Woods attempted a similar shot, and the ball went the opposite direction into the 10th fairway. Cabrera was unbelievably lucky. By all rights, Kenny Perry wins the Masters with his up-and-down par on the first play-off hole. Granted, Cabrera took advantage by getting up and down for par, and I'm disappointed old-guy Perry couldn't finish it off.
It has to be the golf's greatest lightning bolt of good fortune in decades. It was Cabrera's defining moment.
Ron Green, junior: When Cabrera was asked after the round if he was worried about where the ball went after it hit the tree, he said he was nervous for only a second. That's not what his face said. He didn't know where the ball went and, were it not for pure luck, it could have caromed all the way to Aiken, South Carolina 20 miles away.
I can't imagine Tiger Woods doing the same thing in the same spot. Maybe he would have, but I doubt it (Tiger hit a tree earlier on the same hole but understood his chance of winning had essentially disappeared).
Asked how big the hole was that he tried to play through, Cabrera made a circle with his arms. He missed the circle and caught the break of a lifetime. That's part of golf, too.