Another callow jacket awaits Cabrera
If great golf courses are defined by its vital champions, then it’s light to catch on why the membership at Oakmont Country Club was so thrilled to conjure up Angel Cabrera in a green jacket. No other championship seminar in America can brag such a long and distinguished list of major champions. Gene Sarazen. Sam Snead. Ben Hogan. Jack Nicklaus. Johnny Miller. Ernie Els.
Not many race knew much about Cabrera when he won the U.S. Open at Oakmont two years ago by one try over Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk. He was big, Strong and his hardscrabble obsession was as much Pittsburgh as it was Argentina. Oakmont has hosted 11 men’s wizard majors, and only two of its champions resident pro Sam Parks Jr. at the 1935 U.S. Open and John Mahaffey at the 1978 PGA Championship never won another Grand Slam event.
Thanks to Cabrera’s supremacy at the Masters, the one-hit wonders will abide at two. “I believe it’s very important,” said Bob Ford, the longtime run pro at Oakmont. “It validates this as a tack that produces great champions. Great names finish first here.
We were hoping for Woods to win, and when Angel won, it was like, ‘Who is this guy?’ “Now, he’s a Masters champion.” Oakmont has some match as the greatest roll i a arrive rouse of grave champions. Augusta National doesn’t off for in evidence reasons it’s the only advance that holds a biggest every year. Ditto for St. Andrews, the base of golf, where the British Open has been played 27 times.
That might be the greatest class to come any major, for even Nicklaus, a six-time Masters champion, once said, “I was always told that to be a ethical golfer is one thing, but to be a great golfer is to prevail at St. Andrews.” The British Open has reach-me-down only 14 links courses for its 137 championships.
As for American courses hand-me-down for the U.S. Open and PGA Championship? Pebble Beach can sure situation its holder with Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tom Kite and Woods alluring the U.S. Open, and Lanny Wadkins endearing the PGA Championship.
All of them are, or will be, in the Hall of Fame. Oakland Hills has hosted nine majors, and while its lean includes two players with the craft Grand Slam (Hogan, Gary Player) and four other Multiple serious champions (Padraig Harrington, Ralph Guldahl, David Graham and Andy North), it also features Steve Jones and Cyril Walker. The nine winners at “The Monster” have combined to take hold of 30 majors. Baltusrol can assertion two U.S. Open titles by Nicklaus and a PGA Championship conquest by Phil Mickelson.
But its enumerate also includes one-time critical winners Ed Furgol, Jerome Travers and Tony Manero. And while the media complains too much about the heat, Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla., ranks centre of the best.
Its seven crucial champions comprehend the chief players of the pattern two decades Woods and Nick Price along with Hall of Famers Raymond Floyd, Hubert Green and Tommy Bolt. The others were Multiple dominant winners Retief Goosen and Dave Stockton. Goosen, a charge out of Cabrera, was a bit of an uninvestigated until he won another U.S. Open three years later at Shinnecock Hills.
“Validation, in the mood for Bob said, is certainly correct,” Southern Hills prime pro Dave Bryan said Tuesday. “Goosen validated his championship here, especially charming at Shinnecock.” Winged Foot serves up Bobby Jones, Billy Casper, Hale Irwin and Fuzzy Zoeller in the midst Multiple greater champions, along with one-time winners (for now) Davis Love III and Geoff Ogilvy. Oak Hill has hosted only five majors and had a Hall of Fame index successful Cary Middlecoff, Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Curtis Strange until it crowned Shaun Micheel at the 2003 PGA Championship.
It remains the only mastery in Micheel’s career. Does it pith who wins a major? “I’d enmity to circa that,” Bryan said, pausing for a moment. “But I expect it does. It’s important.
” That would be terrible front-page news for The Olympic Club in San Francisco, known as a God’s acre for champions. It’s U.S. Open champions were Jack Fleck, Casper, Scott Simpson and Janzen.
The runner-ups those years were Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Watson and Payne Stewart. Oakmont, however, has an nonpareil distance of noteworthy champions. Its 11 winners have combined to first 56 majors, and seven of them are in the World Golf Hall of Fame.
But it didn’t needfulness Cabrera to take first prize the Masters to clasp him. Ford tells the recital of two Oakmont members headed to Argentina in March. He e-mailed Manuel Tagle, the vehicle for Cabrera, looking for suggestions. Tagle set them up at Olivos Golf Club, then contacted Buenos Aires Golf Club.
But when Buenos Aires planned to load triple the rate, Cabrera took over. “He said, ‘Why don’t you invoke them and advise them to come to Cordoba instead, and I will motion them,”‘ Tagle said. “So they did. We had a great duration with them.
” A month later, Cabrera paid them back in his own way. He gave Oakmont another Multiple bigger champion. Cabrera plans to renewal this summer to Oakmont to transcribe function in a fresh convention of awarding native champions an in name membership to the club. Ford said Cabrera will be presented a jacket tattered only by members. Most appropriately, Oakmont’s jacket is green. Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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April 22 2009 07:17 am | I read by admin
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