Fred Ridley, the chair of Augusta National, has defended the decision to allow Ángel Cabrera to return to the Masters despite the 2009 champion serving a prison sentence for crimes against women. Cabrera’s reappearance has drawn criticism from women’s rights campaigners.
Cabrera is technically entitled to play in the Masters for as long as he wants, as a past winner. Whether Augusta should have honoured that entry condition has been widely questioned after the Argentinian spent 30 months in jail. Cabrera was found guilty of assault, theft and intimidation against former girlfriends in 2021 and 2022.
“It seems as long as male athletes can excel at hitting a ball, we excuse those same men hitting women,” said Jamie Klingler, co-founder of the Reclaim These Streets campaign group.
Ridley was asked for a response during his traditional pre-tournament press conference, at Augusta National on Wednesday. “We certainly abhor domestic violence of any type,” Ridley said.
“As it relates to Ángel, Ángel has served the sentence that was prescribed by the Argentine courts, he is the past champion and so he was invited.”
Ridley had no apparent desire to expand on the situation. A year ago, he labelled Cabrera “one of our great champions” while expressing hope the golfer could return to this major. Cabrera, who was in attendance for the Masters champions dinner on Tuesday evening, has been remorseful in public about his past behaviour. The 55-year-old won on the PGA Champions Tour on Sunday.
“I’m very grateful and obviously the people of the golf world are very great with me and I just appreciated the way they treated me,” Cabrera said of his reception back at Augusta. “Everybody has their own opinion and I respect that.
“Life has given me another opportunity. I have got to take advantage of that and I want to do the right things in this second opportunity. There was a stage in my life of four, five years, that I wasn’t doing the right things I should have done. Before that I was OK, so I just have to keep doing what I know I can do right.”
