{"id":388681,"date":"2023-04-04T06:01:06","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T20:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=388681"},"modified":"2023-04-04T06:01:06","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T20:01:06","slug":"tony-cabrera-is-march-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/tony-cabrera-is-march-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Cabrera is March winner"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Cabrera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A 78-year-old retired master sergeant took command of the Fil-Taga Golfers Association March Ace of the Month Tournament last March 25 at the Coral Ocean Resort.<\/p>\n

Tony Cabrera put younger club members to shame after drilling them with a net score of 68, which was built around a 46 in the front nine and 43 in the back nine for the 21-handicapper for a gross of 89.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Marine Corps veteran, who first picked up the sport in 1974 in San Diego, California, said he really played well during the one-day tourney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really hitting my ball right straight into the fairway and almost 300 yards and went on the green on the third shot\u2026In fact, I had three pars in my first nine holes. If I didn\u2019t do an eight-shot on No. 9, I would have had a better score,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cabrera added that tourists playing in the 10th hole actually stymied everyone\u2019s rhythm during the March tourney.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the 10th hole there were players not part of the tournament and one guy argued with me. After that everyone\u2019s drive went crazy. My ball on No. 9th went down the hill but remarkably I still bogeyed. If it wasn\u2019t for that distraction I probably would\u2019ve shot a gross of 86 or 87,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It was a fine day nonetheless, according to Cabrera, as the last time he shot in the 80s was 30 years ago in 1993.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very thankful to be able to play golf and play like my teammates. They always ask me what\u2019s my trick or what possesses me to play golf at the age of 78. I tell them I just get lucky sometimes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cabrera attributed his success in the gentleman\u2019s sport to still being a very active person despite being in his late 70s. He said he still loves to cook, bake, and work on the yard, as he still plants and even uproots tangan-tangan with his trusty Japanese saw.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I can still hang with the young guys. Leo [Ganacias] asked me on the course because I outdrove everyone \u2018Tony do you mind if I ask you how old you are and could you still hit your ball that straight?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabrera also dedicated his monthly plum to his parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that I was brought up by my parents made me very disciplined throughout my life. I\u2019ve been pretty good at managing my life,\u201d said the third oldest of eight siblings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cabrera is married to Rita Cruz Cabrera and the couple has five children with four of them living in Washington, D.C. The youngest lives with them in their lovely home in As Matuis.<\/p>\n

Bert Suda and Roland Merar came in second and third with an identical net score of 73 after Cabrera. However, the former edged the latter via a scorecard tiebreaker. Suda had a gross of 92 (47-45), while Merar had a gross of 83 (40-43).<\/p>\n

A total of 19 players took part in the Fil-Taga March tourney.<\/p>\n

In the par 3 competition, Dan Ganacias, Freddie Cataluna, Albert Pajarillaga, and Mike Cruz came out on top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 78-year-old retired master sergeant took command of the Fil-Taga Golfers Association March Ace of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":388662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5467],"class_list":["post-388681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-tony-cabrera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}