LOS ANGELES • Matt Kuchar, who has earned more than US$45 million (S$61.1 million) as a professional golfer, went to Mexico last fall in search of his first victory in four years - and a local caddie who could help him get it.
He found both. But that happy ending has quickly dissolved into a scandal that casts the 40-year-old as an ugly American and a particularly shameless elitist in a country-club sport.
Kuchar has been accused of fleecing his caddie in Mexico, David Giral Ortiz, by paying him a tiny fraction of what the job usually yields when the boss wins US$1.3 million, as Kuchar did at the Mayakoba Classic in November.
In a typical PGA Tour arrangement, a caddie gets a flat rate of US$1,500 for the event, which helps cover expenses, and a bonus worth 10 per cent of the golfer's winnings.
For Ortiz, who is also known as El Tucan, that would have meant about US$130,000. Instead, he told Michael Bamberger of Golf.com, that he received only US$5,000.
Kuchar confirmed it, but defended the payout, telling the website: "For a guy who makes US$200 a day, a US$5,000 week is a really big week."
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$61m
Career prize money the 40-year-old Matt Kuchar has earned as a professional golfer.
Ortiz said the two had agreed on US$3,000 plus an unspecified amount of his winnings, while Kuchar said he had promised Ortiz US$1,000 for a missed cut, US$2,000 for a made cut, US$3,000 for a top-20 finish and US$4,000 for a top-10 finish, with no specifications for a win.
"The extra US$1,000 was, 'Thank you - it was a great week'," Kuchar told Golf.com.
"Those were the terms. He was in agreement with those terms.
"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."
He and Ortiz had never worked together before but, Kuchar, who added the tournament to his schedule on a whim, needed a substitute for his regular American caddie.
Questions about their arrangement soon surfaced on social media, and indignation began building against Kuchar, who has been considered one of the more affable players on the Tour.
At the recent Phoenix Open, fans at the typically raucous 16th hole chanted, "Pay your caddie", when it was Kuchar's turn to hit.
A few players, like Tom Gillis, who competes on the PGA Tour Champions for seniors, have taken Kuchar to task on Twitter.
"What would Jack or Arnie have done in this situation???" he tweeted, referring to two of the game's greats, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. "Seized the opportunity to change a man's life."
Kuchar's peers, who are playing with him this week at the Genesis Open at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, have largely chosen to avoid the issue or, when given the veil of anonymity, have said his parsimony does not represent the majority of professional golfers.
Marc Graubart, a Houston resident who regularly employs Ortiz during golf vacations in Mexico, said he happened to be with him last month after questions about his compensation surfaced.
They saw Kuchar, who was in Hawaii to play at the Tournament of Champions and the Sony Open, telling reporters that he had paid Ortiz more than US$3,000 for his services and less than 10 per cent of his total earnings.
Graubart said in a telephone interview on Thursday he had quizzed Ortiz about the details of his unwritten agreement with Kuchar.
He then explained the typical pay scale to Ortiz, who seemed unaware that he could have earned more money.
Graubart said he and a friend helped Ortiz write e-mails to Kuchar's agent, Mark Steinberg, requesting more compensation.
In a Jan 23 e-mail, which The New York Times obtained, Ortiz wrote that he had asked Kuchar for a percentage of his first-place cheque if he were to win.
The existence of the e-mails was first reported by Golf.com.
"Matt said 'Sure' with a smile," Ortiz wrote in the e-mail, "not believing that he would actually win the tournament."
A few days later, Graubart said, Ortiz received an offer of US$20,000 from a tournament director who appeared to be acting on behalf of Steinberg.
Graubart said Ortiz had requested US$50,000, and the caddie wrote an e-mail asking if he could deal directly with Steinberg, who replied: "I am out of the country. What Matt has offered is fair."
Some golf fans disagree.
A GoFundMe account has been set up on Ortiz's behalf, with the goal of raising the US$50,000 he has been unable to collect from Kuchar.
As of yesterday, the amount raised was US$2,226.
NYTIMES
