Angel’s Among Us: Angel Cabrera wins 2025 Regions Tradition for first PGA Tour Champions major
Published 3:27 pm Monday, May 19, 2025
Angel Cabrera overcame the elements to shoot a final-round 64 and surge to the front for a Monday win at the 2025 Regions Tradition, securing his first PGA Tour Champions major title. (For the Reporter/Dawn Harrison)
(Reporter Photos/Alec Etheredge)
(For the Reporter/Dawn Harrison)
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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor
HOOVER – As darkness settled on the Greystone Golf and Country Club’s Founders Course, Angel Cabrera was one of six golfers still left on the course chasing the PGA Tour Champions’ first major trophy of the year at the Regions Tradition.
Two weather delays earlier in the day on Sunday meant that the two groups would need to finish on Monday, May 19 with the result still very much in the air.
What’s more, sunset halted a round where Cabrera had rocketed up the leaderboard into a tie for first with seven birdies and just one bogey in the first 15 holes.
To him though, it was just one more bout with adversity in a recent stretch that has brought much of it.
Cabrera finished strong, shooting a 64 to surge from a tie for fifth to win the 2025 Regions Tradition, his first major championship on the PGA Tour Champions and third across both tours.
“I played very well all week and just had to trust myself and keep going, and it paid off,” Cabrera said through a translator.
Entering the day on Sunday, Jerry Kelly held a one-stroke lead over Y.E. Yang thanks to Kelly’s third-round 65.
He took the lead over from Richard Green, who led after both of the first two rounds with a first-round 63, which tied the record since the event moved to Greystone, and a second-round 68. Green would finish tied-for-16 after shooting 75 and 71 to end the tournament and is still in search of his first senior tour win.
However, Kelly largely played defense throughout his final round, making just three birdies in the first 10 holes. That allowed Cabrera to tie Kelly for the lead with a birdie putt on the par-4 ninth.
Kelly would retake sole possession of the lead with a dramatic birdie putt of his own on the ninth, but he slipped up with a bogey on the par-4 11th. With Cabrera in the group behind Kelly, he would soon birdie the 11th to take advantage and go one stroke ahead.
Both men birdied the par-5 13th, which played much shorter due to course conditions from three rainstorms in two days. That preceded Cabrera’s first mistake of the round, a bogey on the par-5 15th which brought Kelly back into a tie for the lead at -18.
The two groups would call it a day in the middle of their next holes before coming back to finish up on Monday morning.
Cabrera started his morning with a birdie putt on the 16th to briefly retake the lead after Kelly made par on the 15th, but Kelly got a 16th-hole birdie of his own to tie it back up after Cabrera made par on the 17th.
Both men suffered setbacks on their next holes when they found the bunker. However, it would only prove disastrous for one man.
Kelly’s tee shot on the par-3 17th found the right bunker, and after setting up a close par putt, his third shot rode the lip of the hole before coming out for a bogey.
Cabrera, on the other hand, recovered from hitting the bunker on his second shot on the par-5 18th by using his wedge to set up a birdie putt to go to 20-under-par.
That proved to be the decisive blow as Kelly missed his third approach shot that he needed to hole out to make eagle and force a playoff, handing Cabrera the win.
This is now Cabrera’s second win in his last four senior tour starts after he won the James Hardie Pro Football Hall of Fame Invitational on April 6 in Boca Raton, Fla. He now sits in fifth in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup standings thanks to his $390,000 boost from winning the Tradition.
Cabrera is less than a year removed from his return to the PGA Tour Champions after serving 30 months in prison in Brazil and Argentina for domestic violence. After his release from prison in 2023, his visa was reinstated in 2024, allowing him to play 12 senior tour events last season, his first starts since 2020.
Cabrera qualified for the tour’s 2025 season over the offseason and has now won two of his six starts on tour this year.
He also returned to the Masters for the first time since 2019 thanks to his exemption as the 2009 champion. Cabrera also won the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club.
Elsewhere on the leaderboard, Yang finished third at 18-under-par with a final-round 68, challenging for the lead at times but never making the final move necessary to go atop the leaderboard as he finished a stroke back. Steven Alker also shot a 68 in the final round to finish fourth at 17-under-par
Chris DiMarco, Stephen Ames and Charlie Wi all finished tied-for-fifth at 15-under-par after Wi slipped from the final group with a final-round 70. Michael Wright finished in eighth at 14-under-par.
A pair of Hall-of-Famers surged on Sunday to crack the top 10 as Miguel Angel Jimenez and Reteif Goosen shot a 65 and 66, respectively, to finish in a tie for ninth at 13-under-par with Paul Goydos, who shot a final-round 67.
Other notable names included two-time Tradition champion Steve Stricker at 9-under-par in a tie for 22nd and last year’s Charles Schwab Cup champion Bernhard Langer at 7-under-par in a nine-way tie for 27th that included the 2024 Tradition champion Doug Barron.
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