"It's a great moment for me, I can't believe it," Angel Cabrera said in a press conference late Sunday afternoon. Neither could we.
Golf fans watched with surprise as the 37-year-old Argentinian took the U.S. Open for his first major championship and first career PGA Tour victory.
And the U.S. Open trophy goes overseas for the fourth straight year.
Throughout the back nine, we waited for top American guns Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk to overtake Cabrera and decide the tournament between themselves. These were the first- and third-ranked golfers in the world - of course they would. Although we wouldn't see fan-favorite Phil Mickelson duel with Tiger, this was looking to be an acceptable alternative. We were left waiting.
We watched Cabrera nervously bogey 16 and 17, and go to his trusty pack of smokes, while Tiger lurked and Furyk made three consecutive birdies on the back nine to pull himself back into the championship.
Just a day earlier, Cabrera started the third round in the lead, only to struggle to 6-over-par 76, including a drive on the 18th hole that landed in a drainage ditch.
But with a clutch drive, an adequate iron shot and two putts for par on 18 - a hole that surely looked like it would cause another U.S. Open train wreck - Cabrera slipped into the clubhouse unscathed. There would be no famous U.S. Open gaffe on this day, not from this champion.
They call Cabrera "El Pato," the duck, for the way he walks. Now Cabrera was waddling off a brutal Oakmont course, raising his fist in delight and ducking into the clubhouse with sole possession of the lead.
Furyk and Woods were still on the course, but this was a week where it was better to be off the course than on it. Poorly executed shots on the short 17th ended up costing the pair valuable chances to tie or take the lead from Cabrera. Furyk pulled his second shot on 18 badly and missed a birdie chip that would have forced a Monday playoff.
For Furyk, it was the second consecutive year he finished one stroke behind the winner. Last year, he missed a short putt on the 18th at Winged Foot in New York that would have tied Geoff Ogilvy for the lead and what would have been a potential playoff. He then watched, with the rest of the golfing world, as Mickelson and Scotland's Colin Montgomerie collapsed, handing the championship to Ogilvy.
Woods was unable to stop the ball near the pin after hitting his second shot out of light rough. His putt to tie Cabrera missed, and his record when coming from behind in majors dropped to 0-29.
It would have been awesome titles for both Woods and Furyk, with Sunday being Father's Day. Furyk, who won the championship in 2003, is a Pennsylvania native - the very state where the 2007 version was being held. He would have loved to win the open again in front of home-state fans and his father Mike.
Tiger, who is soon to become a father himself, was taught the game by his father, Earl. Tiger openly admits Earl also was one of his best friends. A lasting image in golf archives is Tiger walking off the green, after dusting the field in the Masters 10 years ago, and giving Earl a traditional post-win bear hug. Earl passed away last year, and it would have been a fitting tribute.
Both were easy stories to root for, but it was Father's Day in Argentina too, and the big-hitting Cabrera was the man that stood alone at day's end.
And now, Cabrera, ranked 41st in the world, knocks off numbers one and three on the final day of one of the toughest US Opens in history. A duck beating a tiger? Go figure.
