DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Matt Kuchar responds to caddie payment report: 'Making $5,000 is a great week'

Matt Kuchar responds to caddie payment report: 'Making $5,000 is a great week'
by Kyle Porter
@KylePorterCBS

The Matt Kuchar-David "El Tucan" Ortiz story continues to duel Sergio Garcia's actions in Saudi Arabia for the lead golf story of the year, and neither is going anywhere. Following Ortiz's comments earlier this week about how he felt taken advantage of by Kuchar after receiving a $5,000 tip on Kuchar's $1.3 million in winnings from last fall's Mayakoba Golf Classic, Kuchar responded.

"I kind of think someone got in his ear," Kuchar told Golf.com on Wednesday. "I was very clear and very upfront on Tuesday [of the tournament week]. And he said, 'OK.' He had the ability, with bonuses, to make up to $4,000."

Ortiz and Kuchar had apparently set up a sliding payment scale based on where Kuchar finished for the week. On the PGA Tour, it's normal to pay 5 percent for a made cut, 7 percent for a top 10 and 10 percent for a win to your regular caddie. Ortiz, however, is not a regular caddie and was working as a fill in for Kuchar for the week in Mexico. Here's Michael Bamberger of Golf.com with more details.

Kuchar said he told Ortiz he would pay him $1,000 if he missed the cut, $2,000 if he made the cut, $3,000 if he had a top-20 and $4,000 if he had a top-10. "The extra $1,000 was, 'Thank you — it was a great week.' Those were the terms. He was in agreement with those terms. That's where I struggle. I don't know what happened. Someone must have said, 'You need much more.'"

"For a guy who makes $200 a day, a $5,000 week is a really big week," he added later on.

That sentence is the crux of the entire thing. Technically, Kuchar is right, but he's also using this as justification to not really do the right thing. He's whiffing so hard on the reality that the cost of not paying El Tucan even close to what a caddie would normally make is far greater than what he's saving in money.

"I think people know me well enough to know I wasn't trying to get away with anything, that is not how I operate," Kuchar told Golf.com.

I believe that. This is not a story about Kuchar being a bad dude. It's a story about how outrageous wealth can erase the self-awareness necessary to understand exactly how patronizing relative generosity actually is.

"It's done. Listen, I feel like I was fair and good," Kuchar said via GolfChannel.com. "You can't make everybody happy. You're not going to buy people's ability to be OK with you, and this seems to be a social media issue more than anything. I think it shouldn't be, knowing that there was a complete, agreed-upon deal that not only did I meet but exceeded.

"So I certainly don'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 $5,000 is a great week."


I gotta say, he looks like a jackass. Number 1, the initial deal was crap and he was clearly undercutting this guy for what a normal caddie should have agreed to. Number 2, when he won, what would it hurt to float the guy an extra $50-250K to show him you're not a jerk.

For a guy that's made close to $40M-something in career earnings, this just comes off as tone deaf. I'm sorry, but $5,000 might have been the agreement, but he should have paid him a lot more.

Also, the "For a guy who makes $200 a day, a $5,000 week is a really big week..." comment screams, "since he's poor, I can undercut him and he'll still be content because he doesn't know any better."

The fill-in caddie agreed to provide a service for a fee. He would have known or could have found out what the prize money was before agreeing to the fee. As a fill-in, his duties were
likely a lot less than Kuchar's regular caddies duties as well. Simply from the fact the two men did not know one another and Kuchar would be less likely to turn over the reins to this new guy. He probably got a lot of his own yardages, and simply asked this fill-in to carry the bag and hand him the club he selected. I'm sure this guy wasn't helping him read putts or lay out course strategy. I don't see the problem here.

You're making some assumptions on how much the guy worked, which we don't know the facts. One could assume if he only carried the bag and never said a word, what you suggest might make $5,000 fair. However, he may have also helped do a normal caddie's job.

I just think it's a bad look, especially as a guy that's made a ton of money and is used to cutting 7-10% checks to caddies. If I were in the same position, I wouldn't have seen it as an opportunity to shaft some guy by offering a contract that is well below the norm. And I'd also think of it as karma too, I played well, got some good luck, so I should share it back to the guy that was next to me all week.

What is the job of a caddie?

Feels like a loaded question. I’ll answer anyway...

Carry the bag, clean the clubs, replace divots, know the yardages, track his shots throughout the week, help read the greens and generally support a player in almost any other small, medium or big task while he’s attempting to win $1.3M.

A caddie generally takes home 7-10% of the golfers earnings.

The reaction across the tour has been mostly negative. Heck,Tony and Mike killed him on PTI today. Look, when you’re famous and rich, your tipping habits can go viral. In this case, he tipped $1,000 after winning over a million dollars and commented that he didn’t need to pay/tip him any further because the caddie is poor and is used to being paid so little.

I like Kuch, but pay the rate. 10% is the rate for a win.


Some golfers like Woods and Mickelson can pay less because they just put the caddie on the payroll.


As for what a good caddie does....it's way more than carrying a bag for 18 holes.

Kuchar sounds like an ass. Pay the dude the going rate. I despise snobs.

I don't play golf so I was never really sure what they do.

I don't have an opinion on this either way.

I apologize for assuming you were setting me up. I thought you were asking that so I could say, “carry a bag of golf clubs” and then it would be an easy shot of “...sounds like $5,000 was too much as is.”

My first job was a caddy at Worthington Hills Country Club. Pay the going rate.

J/C

I think its a bad look, but the caddie has some responsibility in this as well. You would think, that as a caddie, you would know what the going rate for one is. When offered the 4,000 or whatever it was, he should have said something then. Not 4 months later when he realized how much the guy actually won.

All in all though, the pro is acting like a jerk, but they did have an agreement - which everyone is glossing over because of the numbers.

I know what I am worth at my job, I am not going to take a job running a bank for 15.00/hour. I have two options, I can either try to negotiate the salary I know I and my duties typically earn, or I can politely say "no thank you". I am not going to take the job, and then complain about the pay afterward because the bank lands a billion dollar account.

I think the first job of a caddie is to find out how much a pro caddie is supposed to make. just me.

So if Dicks Sporting goods is selling the Brand new pings for 299.99 are you going to pay the going rate, or accept the offer presented to you from them?

Should he have given him a bigger tip for the win. sure. But the guy AGREED to the set price for all levels of Matts finishing position.

I seriously doubt the guy did anything more then give him the clubs, replace divots and clean the clubs. How much did Happy Gilmores caddy help him. lol.

Matt should not have said anything about what the guy normally makes. that there made him sound like an a**.

and i don't think $200 a day is considered poor. $1000 a week and $52k a year. not rich but not poor.

Dude took advantage of a guy... I know it was the agreed amount but he should know better than to offer a crap deal to save a buck.... he paid him 0.38%... that's pathetic...

The moral thing to do would have been to offer him the industry rate.
The classy thing to do would have been to give him a bonus on top of it.
The pathetic thing to do would be to offer way less and take advantage of someone's ignorance/desperation.

Boo.

Dude heard it from fans and has agreed to pay the man $50,000... which I still think is low but better... 3.8% of winnings... still cheap ass....

http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/26005383/matt-kuchar-apologize-caddie-pay-full-50000

Yeah, he was getting crushed by his peers, the fans and the media. He ended up giving him an additional $45 for a total of $50, but it should have been an additional $85k to get to a decent 7% ($90k).

I never liked him and I couldn't put my finger on it. He just seem unlikable. This clinches it.

Dude's comments sound like the comments of a snob.

He won big; pay up. Make him look like a piker.

I tip my uber drivers better than that, at least they get 10%

Kuchar alway seemed like a good guy. I think he was a little tight with his money in this case, and should have given the guy more without being pressured into doing so due to public backlash.

On the other hand, the caddie did accept terms the terms of his temporary employment.

Still not as bad as 'Phony Phil' Mickelson, everybody's darling, who onces whined about high state taxes in California when he was making $49 million per year.

Taxes in California are high.

What does that have to do with what somebody makes?

There is a lot more information in this article...

GOLF

The caddy is definitely coming out of this looking like the better person.

I'd say someone who makes as much money as he did/does shouldn't complain about state taxes. He can always move to another state.

It doesn’t seem like it has been posted, but this golfer ended up paying the caddy the full amount.