ESPN Commentary

SAN DIEGO -- Angel Cabrera huffed and puffed his way to victory in the 2007 U.S. Open, saving pars and sucking cigarettes with comparable gusto.

The burly Argentine, who best endured the beating administered by Oakmont Country Club, comes here to defend his title minus both his putting stroke and his nicotine fix. He'd like to regain his touch on the moss, but doesn't miss the smoking. Cabrera gave up the unfiltered cigs cold turkey last year after he got the flu, and says he hasn't gone back.

"I'm feeling much better now that I don't smoke," Cabrera said Tuesday at Torrey Pines through an interpreter. "But my life goes on whether I smoke or not, so I really don't care much about it."

You don't have to be the surgeon general to tell Cabrera that his life won't necessarily go on if he smokes. Nor do you have to be Andy North to tell him that his chances of repeating last year's surprise victory are greatly enhanced if he rediscovers his putting aplomb.

Cabrera went the final 27 holes on Oakmont's flash-fried greens without a 3-putt. Those soft-touch days seem long gone now, as El Pato (The Duck) waddles into Torrey Pines tied for 180th on the PGA Tour in putts per round.

That's why Ping sent Cabrera a new putter to replace the croquet mallet he's apparently been using. He'll use it to tinker with in his practice rounds here.

"I'm having a rough time on my putting right now," Cabrera said. "So I'm trying different things, different putters. I have two putters, the one I used last year at Oakmont and a new one. So I'll see. The one that feels best I'm going to play on Thursday."

If you're looking for players to draft in your Open pool, you can probably mark down Cabrera as a toss. And not just because he hasn't broken 70 in 15 rounds dating back to March. You're advised to look elsewhere because the major tournaments have become the province of only three people: Tiger, Phil and Who?

With his Open title, Cabrera has graduated from the ranks of Who?

Tiger Woods has won five of the past 22 majors. Phil Mickelson has won three. The only other repeat major winners in that time are Retief Goosen in the 2003 U.S. Open and Vijay Singh in the '04 PGA Championship. The other dozen have been won by first-timers, most of them far removed from the list of usual suspects:

Trevor Immelman. Zach Johnson. Michael Campbell. Todd Hamilton. Ben Curtis. Shaun Micheel. Rich Beem. And don't forget Angel Cabrera. While these nobodies have snuck in and stolen the hardware, hotter names have grown cold.

We've quit waiting for mega-talents like Davis Love III, David Duval and Fred Couples to win a second major. Jim Furyk has been holding at one for five years. The young guns who were supposed to be in hot pursuit of Tiger -- Sergio Garcia, Charles Howell III, Adam Scott, Lee Westwood, Chad Campbell, etc. -- are still sitting on zero.

Meanwhile, seemingly any Tom, Dick or Paddy can win a major. Unless it's a U.S. Open, which has been downright un-American lately.

The last four winners of the national championship have been foreigners, all from the Southern Hemisphere (Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, if you're scoring on the home atlas).

The U.S. Open has been the major from Mickelson's worst nightmares, and the major Woods hasn't won in six years for varying reasons. They're the heavy co-favorites now, given their track records at Torrey Pines. But to win on the longest course in Open history, they'll probably need the same formula Cabrera tapped into at Oakmont.

Cabrera hunched his burly shoulders, cupped his unfiltered cigarettes and mauled the ball off the tee. On the 12th hole at Oakmont, he unleashed one drive measured at 390 yards. And when the bombs went crooked, he regrouped and avoided disaster. Usually the U.S. Open plays to straight-ball hitters, but not lately. Cabrera and Ogilvy in particular won by going deep off the tees.

But even more than that, El Pato won by stoically enduring the indignities Oakmont administered. When the low score is 5 over par, the course wins and the champion merely survives. That was Cabrera, who never let the wheels come off despite dueling on the back nine with national favorite Woods and local favorite Furyk.

"The most important thing that I did last year was having a lot of patience on the golf course, specifically on the third day," Cabrera said. "The third day things went rough for me [shot 76], and having patience and waiting, I think that was the key."

The party was on later for a guy who grew up without a silver spoon in Villa Allende, Argentina. When Cabrera returned home, he led a parade from the airport by standing up through the sun roof of a car holding the nation's flag. The celebration apparently raged on long enough that Cabrera withdrew from the French Open the following week.

Given the recent track records of major winners not named Tiger or Phil, Angel Cabrera was justified in living it up last year. He might not be back that way again.

Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.