Cabrera wins Masters playoff

Augusta — Suddenly ahead two with two to play, having just hit what he considered the greatest shot of his long competitive career, Kenny Perry had finally come to that place he had sought all week.

Not just the Masters, not just his first major championship; within his grasp was Perry’s chance for validation, that a range rat from the Kentucky country has what it takes. And just as suddenly, it was all gone.

“It just seems when I get down to those deals, I can’t seem to execute,” he would later say. “Great players make it happen and your average players don’t. And so, that’s the way it is.”

Argentina’s dogged Angel Cabrera, an accessory much of the day, caught Perry on the 72nd hole Sunday and then outlasted him and Chad Campbell in a three-way playoff to win the memorable 73rd Masters. The title makes for Cabrera’s second major, to go with the 2007 U.S. Open, and required, among many other things, a miraculous par from behind a magnolia tree on the first playoff hole to extend the night.

But with a fist-pump and then a serenade from a small but vocal group of Argentine fans after his clinching par on No. 10 green, he became the first South American ever with two majors.

“It’s the Masters,” Cabrera said through a translator. “It’s a course you can do a lot of birdies and a lot of bogeys. A lot of magical things happen. It’s the Masters!”

At 48 years old and trying to become the oldest player to win a major championship, Perry finished regulation play with consecutive bogeys for a 71 and necessitated the playoff at 12-under 276. Campbell was eliminated on the first extra hole when he failed to get up and down from the bunker on the right of No. 18 green.

Having somehow saved par out of the trees on the right, Cabrera won the title with a routine par-4 on No. 10. Perry missed his approach badly to the left — he said the ball picked up some mud from his drive — and his 18-footer for par missed to the left.

“I’m not going to feel sorry,” said Perry, who also lost the 1996 PGA Championship in a playoff to Mark Brooks. “If this is the worst thing that happens to me, I can live with it. I really can.”

Fourth place went to Japan’s Shingo Katayama (278), after a final round 68, which tied Toshi Izawa (2001) for best finish by an Asian player. Charging Phil Mickelson (67) finished at 9-under, ahead of a quartet at -8: Tiger Woods (68), John Merrick (66), Steve Stricker (71) and Steve Flesch (67).

Woods and Mickelson, though they never caught Perry, provided much of the afternoon’s early drama, as the world’s two top-ranked players rushed from seven shots off pace to close to within a shot of the lead before fading.

“I was hoping they’d have a little boxing match out there,” Perry said. “But I knew I was far enough ahead that they’d have to do something spectacular to catch me.”

Then it was Perry’s turn for the spectacular, striking what he said was the finest shot he’s ever made, a tee-shot into the par-3 16th that stopped four inches short of the cup. That birdie gave him the two-shot edge — Cabrera also birdied the hole with an 18-footer — which Perry proceeded to hand right back with consecutive bogeys on the 17th (off a skulled chip) and 18th (out of a fairway bunker).

Through the uneven play of the playoff, Cabrera seemed to find a rhythm. When he saved par on the 73rd hole with a six-footer, even Perry applauded from the apron. Nervous?

“Always,” Cabrera said. “This stage of the tournament, anyone who says they’re not nervous, they’re not human.”

Humanity has long been Perry’s long suit. This was the day he sought something a little grander.

“I had the tournament to win,” he said. “I lost the tournament.”