During the week of May 26, 2025, Angel Cabrera won two senior majors in the span of just 6 days: the Regions Tradition on Monday and the Senior PGA Championship on Sunday.
As there are five PGA Tour Champions majors, Cabrera is now just 2 1/2 tournaments away from completing the PGA Tour Champions Slam, an amazing feat when you consider that Cabrera had spent 30 months in three different slammers.
Sports psychologists have taken note of Cabrera’s accomplishment and believe it has applications for other professional golfers. Dr. Franklin Medulla, a licensed therapist and Associate professor at the University of Kalispell, believes that years locked up in the Big House can lead to big gains on the golf course. “When you’re in the can for an extended period of time,” says Medulla, “you can concentrate in a way not possible on the outside. Let’s take the pre-shot routine, for example. If you’re in a 10′ x 20′ cell, you can visualize approaching an imaginary golf ball on the concrete floor … and gazing through the bars at a target outside your cell. It could be a stinkin’ bull bringing a billy club down on an inmate’s head … or a little bitch being gang-raped while making a collect phone call. You decide.
“Whatever your target is, see it in your mind’s eye and visualize your shot shape. Then put your golf grip on your shiv and practice your swing over and over and over again. Feel free to add commentary after your swing’s completion: Be right is often used. As is C’mon, wind! To add some tournament realism to this exercise, pretend that your cellmate is your caddie; if you’re unhappy with one of your swings, by all means, give your cellmate a dirty look.”
Medulla believes that touring professionals who have no status on any golf tour anywhere in the world would benefit from at least one year in a maximum security prison. “It can’t be one of those country-club prisons for white-collar criminals,” says Medulla. “It’s gotta be a place where hard men do hard time. Only under the most brutal conditions can a golfer summon the focus necessary to compete in the most pressure-filled golf tournaments. Angel Cabrera has demonstrated that not long after being sprung from a hoosegow hell hole, the act of winning becomes as familiar as making a grilled cheese sandwich on a prison cell’s radiator.”
Cabrera has confirmed Medulla’s theory in Big Poppy’s “Up the River” podcast: “The whole time I locked up, I no think of resisting hip turn … or putting club in slot … I just practice in mind pre-shot. That’s all. Not even thinking of gassing up courtesy car. Just me, ball, and shiv. Now I want two-and-half more major!”
