Argentine golfer Ángel Cabrera boasts three PGA Tour wins, including the 2007 U.S. Open and 2009 Masters. But his future with the tour looked uncertain when the man known as “El Pato,” or “The Duck,” due to his distinct gait, waddled himself into some legal hot water. After being arrested on an Interpol warrant in 2021, Cabrera was extradited to Buenos Aires from a Brazilian jail to stand trial for assaulting an ex-girlfriend. According to BBC Sports, the evidence against the golf star included security camera footage of the victim being threatened by Cabrera. He was sentenced to two years in prison on gender violence charges. The facility in Argentina where he began serving his sentence is known as “The Prison of Hell.”
Cabrera found himself back in court in 2022 when another ex accused him of harassing her. He was convicted again and hit with a concurrent sentence that would have kept him behind bars for almost four years. However, he was released on parole in August 2023. Cabrera had previously been suspended by the PGA Tour, but that December, he was allowed to begin competing in its events again.
After his release, Cabrera spoke to Golf Digest about how he treated his exes. “They had the bad luck of being with me when I was at my worst,” he said, as noted by NBC Sports. “I wasn’t the devil, but I did bad things.”
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