Two-time major winner Angel Cabrera speaks for the first time after 30 months in prison
EDITOR’S NOTE: Professional golf finds itself in more uncharted ethical terrain. Never has a player of supreme accomplishment been associated with such abhorrent activity. During the past three years, the downfall of Angel Cabrera has been hard to follow – extradited, tried and sentenced in Argentina on domestic-abuse charges. His release in August, after serving 30 months in prison, raises more questions, namely, should the administrators of elite tournaments let him play while his competitive window still has daylight?
The 2007 US Open and 2009 Masters champion, now age 54, says that is his wish.
Do we, the fans, offer our second chance? Boxing has a history of stars who successfully resumed careers after incarceration for violent crimes against women, and football and basketball have had their felons, but golf’s arena has traditionally kept a higher standard. Being a pro golfer comes with a special veneer of respectability, and so perhaps one condition of Cabrera’s reinstatement should be to donate meaningful time and money to programs that prevent and treat domestic abuse. Surely, some will feel that is not enough. There is no comfortable answer.
Cabrera has apologised to his former partners in the courtroom and privately paid significant settlements to forestall civil suits. If or to what degree these women accept his apology, we do not know. Micaela Escudero, age 42, now living in Italy and whose relationship with Cabrera was briefest, declined comment to Golf Digest through her lawyer, Federico Pizzicari Bordoy. “As far as she is concerned, that stage of her life is over,” Pizzicari relayed.
Cecilia Torres Mana, 38, did not respond to multiple attempts at contact by Golf Digest but did publish an essay in 2021 on the first-person news website Orato. “What started as a normal relationship quickly turned into physical and psychological submission,” she wrote, stating she was sexually abused, hit and locked in a closet. Allegations Cabrera continues to deny.
With gender-based crimes, it can feel especially problematic to parse conflicting he said/she said statements and mete appropriate punishments. Speaking out immediately against all minor offences must be encouraged as a way of preventing dangerous behaviours from escalating. A careful reading of the cases against Cabrera paints a picture of an emotionally disabled alcoholic. To be sure, he is guilty of terrorising two women, was found guilty and admits it.
A brief history of Cabrera’s romantic relationships begins at 18, when he started living with Silvia Rivadero, then 30. She brought four children to the household and together they had two more. Never married, they separated in 2012. Torres Mana, a police officer, made first contact with Cabrera via direct message in 2016. They started dating, and that same year she filed a complaint of abuse supported by video evidence. Two years later she filed a second complaint that Cabrera stole her phone, threw it at her and injured her scalp. While their relationship lasted about five years, neither charge was ever withdrawn, and they were set to expire in October 2020. By neglecting to notify authorities of his travel to the United States for a PGA Tour Champions event in August 2020 and thus missing a related court hearing, Cabrera triggered an Interpol Red Notice, which alerts police worldwide to international fugitives. This was costly. Cabrera’s manager, Manuel Tagle, believes judiciaries regarded the unexcused absence as the hubris of a famous man who thought he could avoid lecture in their courts and ultimately led to extraordinary sentencing.
Even Pizzicari agrees. “I’m not a judge, but it’s my understanding that his sentence would have been much lighter. In fact, he may have received a conditional sentence and not served time in jail.” Even if coupled with the charges later added by Pizzicari’s client, which included threatening harm, pushing Escudero from a parked car and biting her lip at a nightclub to which Cabrera pled guilty? “Probably. His time in jail would’ve been much shorter, eight months at most,” Pizzicari says.
In all, Cabrera served two-and-a-half years in three jails in two countries for both causing minor injuries and intimidation in a gender-violence context. One set of lesser charges on his record remains unsettled and concern heated phone calls with Rivadero that violated a restriction of no-contact. Although these might seem mitigated transgressions, Cabrera’s entanglements reflect “conduct unbecoming a professional” of the PGA Tour.
The primary purpose of the following interview is not to relitigate details but to know the experience of a once celebrated champion who went to prison. Judge the veracity of his contrition for yourself.
For this interview, Golf Digest assigned investigative journalist and award-winning author Luis Fernando Llosa, who established himself as an expert on Spanish-speaking golfers while reporting for Sports Illustrated in the mid-2000s. Llosa followed Cabrera to Cordoba shortly after his one-stroke US Open victory over Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk at Oakmont and discovered a man irrevocably shaped by his parents’ abandonment, impoverished childhood and sixth-grade education. Such facts should not elicit sympathy but do inform a life that returned as if by gravity to the lowest of circumstances.
This interview was translated from Spanish. – Max Adler
Interview by Luis Fernando Llosa
Why were you in prison? I was in jail because I went through a very bad time in my life in which I made many mistakes.
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Are you guilty? That’s the way the judge saw it, and I believe so, too. What she determined was correct.
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Specifically, what are you most sorry for? The lowest moment I can recall is throwing a cellphone at my partner’s head. Although I deeply regret all of my wrongdoings and harming the people I care for the most, I can’t rewind time and make amends. [Editor’s note: Cabrera continues to undergo medical treatment to combat alcohol addiction, including daily pills that cause sickness if alcohol is ingested. He says he intends to stay sober for the rest of his life.]
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At the beginning of your prison sentence, you were defiant. Did you really believe that the women that you were convicted of assaulting were at fault for what happened? I wasn’t in a very good mental state then. I thought I had been unjustly detained and didn’t deserve to be imprisoned. I blamed everyone else for what was happening to me. I believed that the women I’d harmed were to blame, that they had harmed me.
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How do you feel now? I am repentant and embarrassed. I made serious mistakes. I refused to listen to anyone and did what I wanted, how I wanted and when I wanted. That was wrong. I ask Micaela for forgiveness. I ask Celia for forgiveness. They had the bad luck of crossing paths with me when I was at my worst. I wasn’t the devil, but I did bad things. I’ve apologised to them both in court, and I do so again now. I am deeply embarrassed because I disappointed the people closest to me – and everyone who loves me through golf. Golf gave me everything, and I know I will never be able to repay the debt I owe this sport.
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When did you begin your mandated prison therapy? [After his arrest in Brazil in January 2021, Cabrera was interred in Placido de Sa Carvalho prison in Brazil for five months, then transferred to Carcel de Bouwer in Argentina.] When I got to Bouwer, I had a session every 15 to 20 days for the entire time I was there. At first, I was closed and blocked. I believed everyone else was at fault for everything that had happened. I blamed my manager, my lawyer, the press, my kids, all my friends. I felt they hadn’t taken care of me properly, but that wasn’t true. They tried. Manuel would tell me, “You are doing bad things,” and I’d say, “Yes, yes, yes. I know.” But 10 minutes later I’d be at a bar drinking another beer. I was in my own world. I listened to no one.
Over time, I realised that I was the guilty one. The psychologist succeeded in getting the best out of me. In the first session she asked me, “How are you?” “How do you think I am? I’m terrible. I’m in prison.” So she sent me back to the main hall. The same thing happened the second time. “How do you think I am? I’m imprisoned!” I told her. But she kept insisting. Soon I began to realise that I was not well because everything I’d done had led me here.
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When did things start to go wrong? I would say 2012. I struggled to compete with the younger players on the PGA Tour, and a nagging shoulder injury made it difficult for me to play the way I wanted to. When I realised I couldn’t win, I started to lose interest. I was OK while I was competing, but whenever I returned to Cordoba, my life would unravel, and I’d end up hanging out in the wrong places with the wrong people. I started to separate myself from the good folks I’d met in the golf world. As I surrounded myself with unsavoury types, things got worse until it was me and nobody else. If you weren’t useful to me, it was over. Ciao. I’d become so full of myself. I didn’t have to go in that direction, but I did. That’s why I feel so bad. I did all this to myself. But it’s done. I can’t erase how I acted. All I can do is move forward and do something different.
[In his last eight years on the PGA Tour, Cabrera had four top-10 finishes, missing 54 cuts in 128 appearances – his two bright performances being a playoff loss to Adam Scott at the 2013 Masters and a victory at the Greenbrier Classic in 2014.]
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You’ve mentioned that prison gave you a renewed sense of freedom. That’s the truth. It’s given me a new perspective. I don’t look for people to blame anymore. While I was detained, I realised that if I had still been out – and behaving the way I had been – I would probably not be alive now. There were nights when I lay in my cell thanking God for my imprisonment. What I had been doing was so crazy that I could have ended up – I can’t talk about the things I did. I can’t tell people about them because I feel so awful and am so embarrassed. If I’d called him [points to his decades-long friend and manager, Manuel Tagle] at 3am or him [points to his longtime lawyer and friend Marcelo Lozada] at 6am in the morning and told them to go buy me a case of booze, they’d have told me I was crazy and hung up on me, but the people I had around me did whatever I told them to, and that was totally unhealthy for me. I created that.
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You were in three different jails. Talk about life in each. I had a really hard time in Brazil. I was stuck there for five months in a pavilion with 19 other inmates. Most were foreigners who were there for drug trafficking – Germans, Brits and Americans. I was awaiting extradition with a Chilean and another Argentinian. Ten cells, two prisoners per room, but it was pretty quiet because none of us had much contact with each other. For five months I slept on concrete with a few rags. The bad part was when they bussed us to the hospital infirmary. I was taken there every 15 days at the behest of the consulate to ensure that I was physically healthy.
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Were you scared? Not on the bus because we were all tied up. The problem was later, when we got to the hospital. They would jam us in one large cage, which was nerve-wracking, but I made sure to stay at the margins, away from everyone. We were stuck there in the hot sun with nothing to eat from 8am until 10pm. But what can I say? I was in jail. They would lock us in our cells at 4 in the afternoon and keep us there until 9 the next morning. Me and my Paraguayan cellmate were stuck in a space that was about three yards long and three yards wide. At 8:30 in the morning they’d bring us coffee and a little piece of bread. They would let us go to the main hall at 9, then they would lock us back up at noon. For the first
10 to 15 days, I didn’t worry too much. I figured I’d be there for less than a month and then get sent to Argentina, but after a month passed, I was still stuck in Brazil, and I started to get worried. I stopped eating and became depressed. I pleaded to be sent to Argentina. You know, when you’re like that, a lot of bad thoughts get stuck in your head. I thought, I’ll never get out of here alive. I’m going to die thrown down this well. I’m never going to see my family, my people again. I’ll never return to my country.
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What was your experience in Bouwer? I arrived on June 12 and spent 18 days in quarantine. The cell block I was placed in is known as one of the best. Compared to all the other lockups, it was the most peaceful. There were no killers. It was mostly older inmates who had committed fraud – primarily white-collar criminals. During my last three months at Bouwer, they brought in inmates who had been jailed for murder, rape and drug-trafficking, but they had all been in prison for many years. Only inmates with excellent conduct records were mixed in with us. When they got there, things got a little more tense, but I kept to myself. I never got into trouble with anyone while I was at Bouwer.
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Did the guards and prisoners know you were a famous golfer? Yes. Golf is not at all like soccer in Argentina, but they knew who I was, what I’d done and why I was in prison. For the first few days they were friendly and careful around me, but within a couple of weeks, you were just another prisoner, another number. You’re stuck there, and you have to live under the same restrictions as everyone else.
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Did you have a job? When I got to Bouwer, I asked if I could do physical work and take classes. I wanted to work and finish elementary school, but they refused. “We cannot mix you in with the general population,” they told me. “Something bad could happen to you.” They were worried about having to deal with headlines and bad press if I got into trouble. I guess, in that sense, being a celebrity worked against me because there was a lot to do there. There was a bakery. There was a workshop. There were maintenance crews and even a vegetable garden. But the prison director wouldn’t let me do any of that. The only work I was assigned was cleaning the main hall once a day, which took 10 minutes. For the rest of the day, I remained there or in my cell.
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What did you do all day? I read a lot. Manuel’s dad brought me eight or nine golf magazines at a time. I was alone in my cell most of the time because my cellmate worked all day. During my last six months at Bouwer, I was completely alone because he got released and no one replaced him. I thought a lot about tournaments I played in, especially when I read about myself in the magazines. The older ones had photos of me playing in the US Open and the Masters, as well as in the Presidents Cup, which I played in four times. I’d get nostalgic, but it helped me pass the time. I remember nearly every stroke of that Sunday I won the Masters and would replay it in my mind: the playoff, the famous shot I made through the trees.
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Did you have contact with anyone from the golf world while you were in prison? Some of my old tour friends – Retief Goosen, K.J. Choi, John Daly, Pat Perez – sent me messages of support through my neighbourhood friend, Cordovan caddie Angel Monguzzi. When Gary Player was in Buenos Aires, he gave Andres Schonbaum, the president of the Argentina Golf Association, a letter to pass on to me. It read, “Compadre, I will be happy to see you again. Tienes huevos grandes. You are a CHAMPION.” It gave me a big boost. I have great memories of Gary, who I became good friends with when he was my captain during the Presidents Cups of 2005 and 2007. However, the truth is that I kept to myself. I didn’t want people to see me while I was in jail. Eduardo Romero, who was an important figure in my golfing career, asked several times if he could come visit me. He had been a mentor to me since I turned professional in 1989 and a longtime companion on the European Tour. But I kept telling him, “No, just wait. I’ll be out soon. Don’t come.” The truth is that I was not well emotionally. I was anxious, and I didn’t want people to see me there. I’d say, “We’ll see each other when I get out.” Unfortunately, it was not meant to be because Romero died while I was at Bouwer. I felt the loss deeply. All I’m left with is great memories of the times I spent with him.
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Who visited you in prison? My partner Yamila, my manager, Manuel Tagle, his father, Manuel Snr, my lawyer, Marcelo, my two sons, and my lifelong friend Marcelo Moroldo, who caddied for me back when I played on the Argentine tour.
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Were you able to do anything remotely like golf while incarcerated? Not really. From time to time we would get to go out to a soccer field, and I’d find a stick or broom handle and take some swings, just to practise the movement. There was nothing there that I could hit.
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What was your transition from Bouwer to Monte Cristo like? My last three months at Bouwer were terrible. I was exhausted and got really depressed. Nothing ever changed there, and that got to me. Monte Cristo was completely different. No one watched over you. No one controlled you. Eighty inmates shared 90 hectares of farmland. They were all there because they had attained high marks for conduct and been transferred near the end of their prison sentences. There were no bars on the windows, no locks on the doors, just nature. When I got there the director said, “See that there? That’s the door. If you want to go, leave. We aren’t going to look for you.” You could walk out at any time, but, of course, if you did, you’d end up somewhere much worse.
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What did you do at Monte Cristo? I worked in the nursery taking care of plants. I enjoyed working two-and-a-half hours each morning, watering and sorting plants, setting the bad ones aside and picking out the bigger ones that were ready to be transplanted. It was a good job physically because I got to move around, and it kept me busy mentally. I focused my mind on taking good care of the plants. I would go to
the nursery in the morning and to school in the afternoon. Unlike at Bouwer, where it was too risky to attend classes, I was able to work towards finishing sixth grade. I didn’t get to complete the year because I still had two months of school left when I was released from prison in August.
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Do you plan to continue with any of your studying? No. I’m going to focus on golf.
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What if not for golf? I don’t know. I’m not a fortuneteller, but golf is what presented itself. I started going to the club and caddieing when I was 9. By age 11, I’d quit school and spent all my time working at Cordoba Country Club. I was supposed to finish my sixth-grade assignments to get into seventh. Instead, I told my grandmother, “I’m never going back to school.”
“That’s fine,” she said, “but you’re going to get up at 7am like I do and work all day and return at 6pm like me.” I was happy with that. I knew there was no way I would be able to afford a university education. I’d learned to read and write and that was enough. I didn’t feel I needed anything else. I began to believe I could make a living playing the game.
In 1989, the year I turned pro, my oldest son, Federico, was born. I realised I had to figure out a way to support him and that if golf didn’t work out, I didn’t have any other good options. I’d have to live off the game one way or another, as a player, a greenkeeper or whatever. So I worked and worked and worked. Most of the guys I played with then – some of whom were better than me – didn’t make it, but I kept at it because golf was it for me.
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Who picked you up the day of your release? My partner, Yamila. She was my guardian the entire time I was at Monte Cristo. She had signed me in and out the four times I’d already been out on day passes. But that day was a special day. I got home at noon. Everything seemed a bit strange and knowing that I didn’t have to go back actually made me nervous. When I’d been out on the day passes, I’d spend every last second I could at home. I’d stay as late as possible and rush back to get to prison at five minutes to 11. That night when the clock struck 10, my only thought was, Now I get to sleep in my own bed.
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What was it like to be home with your new son, Felipe? [At Bouwer, well-behaved inmates were permitted two-hour visits with partners every 15 days. In November 2022, Yamila Alvarez, Cabrera’s partner of four years, gave birth to their son, Felipe. They were married in October 2023, two months after his release.] It was incredible. I spent very little time with my older children. When they were growing up, I travelled a great deal for work. I was away seven to eight months a year, so I didn’t have much contact with them. The technology back then wasn’t at all what it is now, so I couldn’t video call them. Felipe’s arrival helped me a lot, and I enjoy being with him every day. I’m able to watch him grow. The other day he started to walk. Experiencing all this makes me stronger, makes me want to get better, so I can to be there for him and help him grow and become a good person.
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When did you first hit balls on a golf course? The first time I played golf was here at El Terron Golf Club in Mendiolaza, 25 days after my release. German Tagle, who is the president of the club and my manager Manuel’s brother, invited me. I’d been racked with self-doubt – wondering how well I would hit, or even if I would be able to hit the ball at all. So much time had passed. I was scared I would get frustrated – that after two or three bad hits I’d throw my clubs down in disgust and quit golf forever. For the entire drive to the club, I obsessed about how my first drive would turn out. But the truth is I hit beautifully. First, some short shots with a lob wedge on the practice range. That went well. Then a little farther with a 9-iron. Everything looked and felt good. When I hit my first few drives, they sailed 300 yards. That got me excited. To be on a golf course again after three years, to walk 18 holes again, it felt like a rebirth. Since then, my old teacher Charlie Epps has come to visit and brought me new clubs.
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How are your physical capabilities? I was really worried when I got out because I lost a lot of muscle mass in prison. I had no idea how my body would respond to playing, let alone rigorous training. The only exercise I was able to do during my last seven months – at Monte Cristo – was walk the grounds. I was also concerned about my left wrist. I had it operated on in October 2020 – and I had not held a golf club once since then – because I was doing rehab in Houston in November and December, and by January 2021 I was in jail in Brazil.
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What about your wrist now? I still feel a little irritation, but I’m doing physiotherapy twice a week, working out at the gym three times a week and playing 18 holes several times a week.
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How do you think what’s happened will affect your legacy? I made serious mistakes, but I’ve also paid my debts. I’m going to work as hard as I can to clean up my image. I want to recover the stature I had as an athlete.
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Would you return to Augusta National next April? It’s my dream to return to that prestigious place and walk the course that gave me so much joy and satisfaction. I played at Augusta for almost 20 years in a row. It’s like a second home to me. It would be a great privilege to return and to attend the Champions Dinner with so many of the golf world’s greatest players.
[Augusta National declined to comment on the status of Cabrera’s invitation. The past two editions of the Masters have featured conspicuous absences related to LIV Golf. Chairman Fred Ridley denied the rumour Phil Mickelson was disinvited in 2022 but confirmed the club asked Greg Norman not to attend in 2023 to limit distraction. The PGA Tour, which does not discuss disciplinary matters, intimated that Cabrera is not banned for life, though he may have more hurdles to clear before he is allowed to compete in its sanctioned events.]
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Do you plan to make a professional comeback? I’m going to try. I thought about making a comeback the entire time I was in prison, but I got worried about how my body would respond, whether my wrist could take it or my back would hurt too much. I had no idea what I would do if things didn’t work out.
I didn’t play a single round of golf for three years, but before that I played for 40. I started hitting balls with a mini-club when I was 10, and that’s something you never forget. My goal is to prepare and play on the Champions Tour. When I’m out there competing, that’s when I’ll truly know if I can handle it physically at that level. Mentally I’m already there. Golf is everything to me. It’s my life. I have to continue.
Photographs by Irina Werning
