Oh Deere! Perry can't close the big one

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- If you were the John Deere Classic as Sunday afternoon was turning into Sunday evening, you felt good.

Your defending champion, Kenny Perry,had a 2-shot lead at the Masters with two holes to play. He had just birdied Nos. 15 and 16. He was in command, and you already had his commitment to return to the Quad Cities in July to defend his title there.

You can run all the ads you want trying to convince people you have great PGA Tour players, knowing you don't get most of the world's biggest golf stars because your tourney is the week before the British Open.

Featuring a reigning Masters winner, as the Deere did two years ago with Zach Johnson, doesn't need to be explained or proven to golf followers casual, be they avid or casual.

Even when Perry bogeyed 17 and 18 to fall into a sudden-death playoff with Angel Cabrera and Chad Campbell, the Deere had reason to be hopeful.

After all, Perry bogeyed No. 18 at the TPC at Deere Run last year to cough up a one-shot lead, and allow Brad Adamonis and Jay Williamson to join him in a playoff.

While Perry won the Deere because Adamonis and Williamson put their second shots of the playoff on 18 in the adjoining pond, he faced a tough cut  of Argentine beef Sunday in Cabrera.

Cabrera didn't outduel Tiger Woods to win the 2007 U.S. Open because he's lucky. Here, he did what Woods couldn't do and shot 12-under to reach this playoff.

Then, he put his first playoff tee shot well off the fairway in some pine straw, but ended up making a par putt of about eight feet.

Campbell faltered on a shorter putt, and Cabrera joined Perry at No. 10 for a second extra hole. Perry's approach wasn't good and Cabrera's was.

Cabrera thus became the first Argentine champ in Masters history, and the first South American and Latin American champ in Masters history.

Meanwhile, Perry said don't cry for him, Argentina. Or any other nation.

Still, the troubled look on his face did little to make one believe him when after the tourney he said "I'm not going to feel sorry."

Not when he also gave comments like these:

"I had that putt on 18 (in the playoff) that I've seen Tiger make it, I've seen so many people make that putt. I knew exactly what it was. That was probably the most disappointing putt of the day because I hit it too easy. You know what, you've got to give that putt a run. I mean, how many chances do you have to win the Masters?"

And "I just wish I had paid more attention earlier in my career when I came here and worked as hard on the golf course as I did before I got here this week. I would have been ahead of the game a lot quicker."

Perry is 48 years and 8 months old. He has 13 PGA Tour wins and has repeatedly said his goal is to win 20. However, he has lost two majors in playoffs 13 years apart, the first one the 1996 PGA Championship that Mark Brooks won in Perry's home state, Kentucky.

"That one is still with me today," Perry said here Saturday. "I've carried that a long time."

But Sunday, he said "If this is the worst thing that happens to me, I can live with it. I really can."

Still, a middle-aged Kentuckian probably second-guessed himself late into the Georgia night.

"Great players get it done," he said, "and Angel got it done. This is his second major he won. I've blown two, but that's the only two I've had chances of winning."

The John Deere Classic can at least boast that it has a 2009 Masters runner-up. Just don't keep reminding Perry. He's painfully aware, now and forever.