Calling the outcry over his caddie’s pay from a tournament in November “a social media issue more than anything,” Matt Kuchar said he had no regrets about the USD $5,000 he paid his emergency replacement to be on the bag for the PGA Tour’s Mayakoba Classic in Mexico.
Kuchar
, who won the tournament, his first Tour victory in four years, took home a USD $1.3 million check , in contrast to what he paid substitute caddie David Giral Ortíz . Caddies typically receive a percentage of what their player earns, sometimes as high as 10% .
In comments to GolfChannel.com, Kuchar ’s arguments were that he and Ortíz had agreed to a fixed payment and that their arrangement included bonuses that would have maximized the payment at USD $4,000 , so Ortíz received more than the arrangement.
“It’s kind of too bad that it’s turned into a story. I really didn’t think it was a story because we had an arrangement when I started,” Kuchar said. “I’ve done enough tournaments and had enough weekly caddies , and I’m very clear about what the payment will be. And we had an arrangement Tuesday that David was OK with, and I thought Sunday he was very much OK with it.”
Instead, Golf.com’s Michael Bamberger obtained an e-mail Ortíz sent to Kuchar’s agent, Mark Steinberg , in which Ortíz said he felt “like I was taken advantage of by placing my trust in Matt.”
“I am a humble man
, who takes care of his family and works hard. I am reaching out to you to see if you can facilitate me receiving a fair amount for my help with Matt winning USD $1,296,000, [...] “I am not looking to disparage Matt or give him a bad name. Fair is fair, and I feel like I was taken advantage of by placing my trust in Matt,” reads the e-mail.
Ortíz, a regular caddie at the Mayakoba Resort near Cancún , told Golf.com that the agreement was a USD $3,000 fee for the week with an undetermined bonus to be paid based on prize money earned. He was surprised when the total amounted to only USD $5,000.
Kuchar
also said that he had subsequently offered Ortíz $15,000 more, but the caddie didn’t accept the offer.
Ortíz confirmed that he was offered the extra money, but said he turned it down because he believed he deserved another $45,000.
“No thank you. They can keep their money,” Ortíz said.
Kuchar
added that he “certainly (doesn’t) lose sleep over this. This is something that I’m quite happy with, and I was really happy for him to have a great week and make a good sum of money. Making USD $5,000 is a great week .”
but last week, Kuchar said that he “made comments that were out of touch and insensitive , making a bad situation worse, […] They made it seem like I was marginalizing David Ortíz and his financial situatio n, which was not my intention. I read them again and cringed.”
The golfer agreed to pay the Mexican caddie another USD $45,000 and plans to call him to apologize .
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