Man, talk about the gift that keeps on giving.  Some of you may recall that Matt Kuchar achieved his first win in four years at the 2018 Mayakoba Golf Classic back in November of 2018.  The big story wasn’t so much that Kuchar captured his 8th win on the Tour, but that he did so with the help of a local caddie, David Ortiz – aka ‘El Tucan.’  This was one of the great feel-good stories of the season and Tommy shared his thoughts here shortly after the win.  However, the story was far from over.  Matt Kuchar and El Tucan were soon thrown into the spotlight for the payment agreement, or lack thereof, that has given us almost five months of Tour drama.

To catch you up, it was pretty well known that Kuch was not going to be paying El Tucan the usual 10% for a win given he wasn’t his full-time looper.  Ok, totally fair.  That said, everyone assumed the $1.3 million prize would still result in a considerable payout for the caddie.  What was that payout?  A $3000 base fee plus a $2000 bonus for the win – all of which was paid in cash via a white envelope full of hundreds, fifties, twenties, fives, and even singles for good measure with a handshake and a goodbye as Kuch likely flew a P.J. into the setting sun.  This didn’t sit well with Ortiz and we finally heard his side of the story in early February.  That story included an additional payment agreed on by Kuchar’s agent, Mark Steinberg.  You can check out all those details here.

Two days later, Kuchar responded saying that the payout was reasonable and he had nothing to do with the Steinberg offer.  Of course noting that Steinberg would not be out the additional money (implying Steinberg was spending Kuchar’s cash).  Kuchar also stated, “For a guy who makes $200 a day, a $5,000 week is a really big week.”  Says the guy that just pulled $1.3 million with this caddie…  The whole ordeal just made Kuchar look like more of an out of touch 1%’er (in my opinion).  You can get those details here.

As soon as I hit submit on that last blog, a new statement was out a day after ole-curmudgeon Kuchar pretended everything was ok.  In short, Kuchar apologized from his ivory tower for his insensitive comments and that he would be paying El Tucan the desired $50k for the win and apologize directly to him for his behavior (which was first a voicemail left on El Tucan’s phone).  I closed that “Emergency Blog” by asking, “What do you think, folks? Have we heard the end of this?”  The answer ended up being a huge NOPE!  We sure didn’t!

Mid last week, Golf.com brought us the story that Matt Kuchar and El Tucan met up in February when the Tour returned to Mexico City for a WGC event.  What I like about this update is that it comes from El Tucan rather than our dismissing and possibly delusional guy, Kuch.

“Matt said, ‘Hey, David, how are you?’” Ortiz said. “I apologized for the [difficulty] the situation created. I told him it was never my intention to embarrass him, but I felt eventually I had to tell the truth. Matt also offered an apology. He said it was all a misunderstanding. He asked me how my family was. He showed me a picture of his family and a video of a hole-in-one made by one of his sons.”

My favorite part might be from this next bit here.  1) El Tucan is a total fanboy like we are, and 2) Kuchar’s sidekick for the conversation which gives me the vibe of Kuch being babysat so his behavior can monitored.

Ortiz said there were four people at the breakfast table, including a sports psychologist “who is very close to Matt.” The fourth person was Roberto Molina, the manager of corporate partnerships for the Mayakoba tournament. Molina served as an interpreter, when needed. Ortiz said that all through the meeting he was excited to be in close proximity to other star golfers, including Rory McIlroy.

Right or wrong, relevant or irrelevant, at least this story seems to have reached an amicable conclusion.  I still think the damage is done for Kuchar and it’s going to be tough to pretend he isn’t the person that he seems to be.  Either way, the dude ‘El Tucan’ got PAID and I’m super pumped for him.  I hope his life was genuinely changed with the payout and that he can look back on this possible once-in-a-lifetime experience with a smile on his face.  His is a story for the ages and I’m sure his family is proud of him.