Cabrera survives on 73rd hole with accidental shot for ages

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- It was Easter Sunday. His name is Angel.

Sappy, yes, but when otherworldly and inexplicable things happen, rational and linear-thinking folks tend to scratch their heads and question the deities about how good fortune sometimes leads to fame.

Angel Cabrera is pumped after saving par on the first playoff hole. (Getty Images)

As Angel Cabrera stood in the trees on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff Sunday at the Masters, he took an all-or-nothing swing that turned out right for all the wrong reasons.

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His two playing rivals, Chad Campbell and Kenny Perry, had both hit their drives on the 18th hole at Augusta National into the fairway, yet Cabrera had sliced his 3-wood badly into the trees. A huge magnolia tree stood directly in his path to the green, surrounded by a forest of pines.

Cabrera grabbed a 4-iron, moved the ball back in his stance and tried to whack a low liner under the tree branches, gambling everything that he could get the ball near the green and save par. With the others sitting pretty, it was his best chance, he reasoned. Had he elected to pitch back into the fairway, he would have had to hit the ball dead sideways and would have faced a shot of around 160 yards.

What followed can be described as one of the luckiest shots in recent major championship history. Cabrera's ball never cleared the forest, caromed off at least one of the trees and somehow ricocheted 90 degrees left into the middle of the fairway, leaving him a perfect wedge shot to the green from 115 yards.

"I only had a spot like this big, and only trees, so I've got to put it through there, that's it," Cabrera laughed, indicating a very small hole. "As easy as that."

Like the rest of the world watching on television, the exact path is about as mysterious and theoretical as the magic bullet fired in Dealey Plaza. He didn't see the carom, either.

"I heard it," he said.

For a couple of hours after the round, the assembled scribes tried to come up with a luckier shot in recent Grand Slam annals. Eventual winner Lee Janzen hit a ball that somehow sailed through the middle of a huge tree at Baltusrol at the U.S. Open in 1993. Paul Lawrie's approach shot on the final hole at the British Open in 1999 bounced over the small creek in front of the green at Carnoustie, allowing him to save par. He won in a playoff.

Sunday's carom was Masters manna from heaven, made all the better because after a stellar wedge shot, Cabrera made the clutch five-footer to save par and extend the playoff. He beat Perry on the second extra hole.

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So, in short, Cabrera had gone for broke, didn't execute the shot and it turned out better than any pitch-out shot he could have possibly attempted.

You can bet that if Sergio Garcia was watching the playoff, he was screaming, "How come stuff like that never happens to me?"

Cabrera cracked that he was a little surprised at how it played out, sorta.

"Yes," he said. "I wanted it to be on the green."

Everybody laughed. What else can you do?

It was a fitting end to a wild Sunday, where Phil Mickelson shot a record-tying 30 on the front nine, Perry nearly aced the 16th hole and Tiger Woods almost staged a miracle rally. By the end, Cabrera, who few figured had a chance after he nearly shanked a shot on the eighth hole, was the last man standing.

"This is the Masters," Cabrera said. "It's a course that you can do a lot of birdies, a lot of bogeys. A lot of magical things happen. It's simply the Masters."

If the burly veteran has a religious bone in his body, he'll be thanking his Master above for the break he received on the 73rd hole, too.