Kuchar won the Mayakoba Golf Classic and the $1.296 million prize that came with it in November. He paid Ortiz, aka El Tucan, $5,000 for his work that week.
Ortiz is not Kuchar’s regular Tour caddie, but a club caddie from Mexico who worked Kuchar’s bag during the tournament in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. John Wood is Kuchar’s regular caddie...
Kuchar eventually offered Ortiz an additional $15,000, according to the report.
Ortiz declined the offer. He was seeking $50,000, which is the value he placed on his work that week, according to the report...
Verbal agreements between players and Tour caddies come with the understanding that a caddie is due 5 percent of a player’s winnings, a number that can increase to 10 percent in the event of a win.
Ten percent of Kuchar’s victory at Mayakoba would be approximately $130,000...
“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.”Kuchar's initial offer of a $4,000 payment to the caddie for winning $1,296,000 is .3%. Even increasing to $5,000 is just .4%. Adding $15,000, to bring the total to $20,000, is still only 1.5%. A typical 5% minimum caddie payment, in this instance, equates to $64,800.
According to Golf.com, Kuchar is 10th on the PGA career earnings list with more than $46 million.
So maybe Matt Kuchar isn't losing any sleep over this, but a $44,000 difference in payment is a lot of money for most people. With Kuchar's $46 million in career earnings, and the fact that this caddie just helped him add another $1.3 million, he should have done the right thing and at least paid the caddie the typical minimum 5%. Kuchar would have still had $1,231,200 for himself.
It's no wonder most people view golfers as elitist and out of touch. Matt Kuchar is another prime example.
No comments:
Post a Comment