Spanish golfer Rafael Cabrera-Bello is Tin Cup'd in South Africa
Golf can humble even the best players in the world, but this? THIS?!? This is downright humiliating. Spanish golfer Rafael Cabrera-Bello was playing his second round at the South African Open this week, and wasn't playing that well.
Cabrera-Bello opened with an even-par 72, but was, to say the least, struggling mightily in the second round. How bad? He lost all the golf balls he had in his bag, and was disqualified for it. That's right, Rafael basically one-upped the famous "Tin Cup" moment by losing that final balata, and was put out of his misery early by rule 4-4a.
According to Jason Sobel of ESPN, Cabrera-Bello lost all 11 golf balls he had in his bag, and couldn't use another because the rules don't allow such a thing, so he had to disqualify himself.
How bad were his first 10 holes of the second round? About as ugly as a Barkley 6-iron. Cabrera-Bello shot a 46 on the first nine, with a bogey, an eight and a 10 on two par-4s.
Now, you're probably thinking Rafael is some hack golfer, but the 26-year-old won a European Tour event in 2009, and has won two Challenge Tour (the Nationwide of Europe) events in his young career. Also, you might be confused why he only had a few balls with him (most hackers carry 11 balls in their top-right pocket), but as a caddie, I always noticed that players don't have a ton of balls with them during tournaments. This might be a superstitious thing, similar to not playing shots from a drop zone in a practice round, or it might just be because they don't want the bag to weigh anymore than it already has to, but when you lose 11 balls in 11 holes, you probably weren't pushing the cut line one way or the other anyway.
Interestingly enough, Ernie Els is leading, a guy that is known to always have 18 golf balls in his bag, because he changes to a new ball after each birdie. Maybe Cabrera-Bello could have borrowed a couple from the Big Easy.
