Angel Cabrera Records Top-10 Finish In Return After Prison Sentence

Former Masters champion Angel Cabrera, who was released from jail in August, has expressed remorse for “his serious mistakes” in an exclusive interview with Golf Digest. 

After serving 30 months in prison for domestic assault and other charges relating to former partners, the 54-year-old finished T10 at Abierto del Litoral, or the Coast Open, a tournament that has been a fixture on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica Developmental Series.

Golfweek released a series of excerpts of Cabrera's interview with Golf Digest, in which he talked about his experience in jail and the remorse he feels. 

“I don’t look for people to blame anymore. While I was detained, I realized that if I had still been out – and been behaving the way I had been – I would probably not be alive now,” he said.

“There were nights I lay in my cell thanking God for my imprisonment. What I had been doing was so crazy. 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.”

The two-time Major champion served prison time in Brazil and Argentina before being released on parole in August, and now has his sights on rebuilding his playing career.

“I thought about making a comeback the entire time I was in prison,” he said. “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.”

In November 2022, Yamila Alvarez, Cabrera’s partner of four years, gave birth to their son, Felipe, and they were married two months after his release.

Cabrera told Golf Digest that “Felipe’s arrival helped a lot” and added that being a father again “makes me stronger, makes me want to get better, so I can be there for him and help him grow and become a good person”.

As well as targeting a return to the Champions Tour, Cabrera is hopeful that he can also go back to the scene of his greatest triumph, Augusta National, where he pulled on the Green Jacket in 2009.

The three-time PGA Tour winner revealed that he had been reading old magazine articles about himself when he was in jail, and said it would be “a great privilege” to return for the famous Champions Dinner prior to the Masters.

Cabrera completed more than two years in custody over gender violence cases against two of his ex-girlfriends, and was sentenced in July 2021 to two years in prison for threats and harassment of Cecilia Torres Mana, his partner between 2016 and 2018.

He said that he had “paid my debts” and added, “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.”

Cabrera, who won the Abierto del Litoral in 1995, carded rounds of 71, 66, 67 and 69 in his first competitive golf since playing on PGA Tour Champions in 2020.