Kuchar clings on at Sony Open amid caddie accusations
What happened at the Sony Open in Hawaii?
Matt Kuchar had to wait to wait four years between his seventh and eighth wins on the PGA Tour. There were just 64 days between eight and nine.
Kuchar, who won the Mayakoba Classic in November, looked to have blown it when he bogeyed three of the first five holes on Sunday to hand Andrew Putnam the advantage, but survived the wobble and birdies at 9, 10, 12, 15, 16 and 18 were enough for a back-nine 30 and a four-stroke win.
Full Sony Open in Hawaii leaderboard
But over the weekend accusations that Kuchar had not paid his caddie after that win two months ago surfaced on social media. More on that now…
What was the big talking point of the week?
It all started in the early hours of Saturday morning when former PGA Tour player Tom Gillis tweeted the following:
Who’s going to be the one to identify the player that paid his caddie $3,000 after winning a PGA Tour event last fall?
If you don’t know, the standard caddie payment on top of their usual salary – if they’re lucky enough to have one – is 10% of the player’s winnings.
Now $30,000 is what you’d get for finishing way down the field, so $3,000 seems rather stingy when you’ve just won a tournament.
A couple of names were bandied about before No Laying Up’s Tron Carter outed Matt Kuchar as the culprit:
A lot of tour caddies were keen to see what Kuch paid his local loop, El Tucan, in Mexico after he won. I guess those suspicions about him being stingy AF were confirmed. *Extra* shitty move. Period. https://t.co/CXt80k3csL
— Tron Carter (@TronCarterNLU) January 12, 2019
Kuchar, you might remember, had entered November’s Mayakoba Classic in Mexico at the 11th hour. And with his regular caddie already on holiday, he hired a club bagman known locally as El Tucan.
Kuchar went on to win the $1.3 million first prize, but it was never revealed how much his temporary caddie had made for his efforts.
Gillis’s tweet and the ones that followed garnered a huge response, and when one reply indicated that Gillis was wrong, he replied:
Nothing false. [My] source couldn’t be any closer to the caddie.
He then tweeted:
Everybody chill. The truth will come out!!!
— Tom Gillis (@tcgillis) January 13, 2019
And it got most of golf’s illustrious media talking about it. This, from SB Nation’s Brendan Porath, was fairly typical:
3k to the caddie off a 1.3M purse is mind-boggling. Outrageous. Like a number you might hear in the caddie yard from the member-guest winning looper.
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) January 12, 2019
Or, if you want something lighter, this from CBS scribe Kyle Porter:
I'm shocked that the guy who plays Augusta and St. Andrews in Skechers isn't a good tipper. https://t.co/nfTJyWs07P
— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS) January 13, 2019
Now Kuchar isn’t on Twitter. So who, bearing in mind he was leading a golf tournament at the time, was going to actually ask him about it?
That would be Golf Digest’s Brian Wacker:
Asked Kuchar about local caddie situation in Mexico: “That’s not a story. It wasn’t 10 percent, it wasn’t $3,000. It’s not a story.” He came back few minutes later, expressed disappointment. "We had an agreement to start the week. He was excited to go to work that week.”
— Brian Wacker (@brianwacker1) January 13, 2019
Me? Well my initial reaction was that they were trying to protect the caddie. A man who suddenly becomes wealthy in Mexico? I don’t think I need to spell that one out.
And scrolling through social media it seems I’m not alone in these thoughts, but Gillis is adamant he has spoken to the caddie via a direct source and he’s said he was only paid the $3,000.
Again, he could be protecting himself. But either way Kuchar or Gillis are going to come out of this looking pretty bad.
Watch this space.
Best quote
Kuchar spoke to reporters after and described his feelings in a way only he and Ned Flanders know how:
I’m tickled, thrilled to have won two events this early in the year.
And then this:
Close enough. pic.twitter.com/J55mdp78A5
— Skratch (@Skratch) January 14, 2019
If anything is going to distract from the caddie saga, it’s Kuch talking about Jay-Z…
The winning moment
Winner, winner! ?
Matt Kuchar claims the @SonyOpenHawaii.
Time to exhale and celebrate. #LiveUnderPar pic.twitter.com/umVpltut0U
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 14, 2019
Gimme? No thanks – they should be banned
What’s in Kuchar’s bag for 2019?
Alex Perry
Alex has been the editor of National Club Golfer since 2017. A Devonian who enjoys wittering on about his south west roots, Alex moved north to join NCG after more than a decade in London, the last five of which were with ESPN. Away from golf, Alex follows Torquay United and spends too much time playing his PlayStation or his guitar and not enough time practising his short game.
