Golfer Defends $5K Payout to Caddie After Winning $1.3M in Tournament

Though he’s good at golf, Matt Kuchar bad at tipping – and proud of it.

In November, Kuchar won the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico City and took home a winner’s check for $1.296 million.

Were he following proper pro golf etiquette, Kuchar would have tipped out his caddie David Ortiz 10 percent of his tournament winnings, about $130,000.

Ortiz, who is not Kuchar’s regular caddie, only got a measly $5,000 for his efforts.

Kuchar, who has made $46 million during his career and is 10th on the all-time money list, later realized the error of his ways and offered Ortiz an addition $15,000 but was turned down.

However, despite taking flak about the low payout, Kuchar maintains the $5,000 was a good deal for Ortiz because it was actually $1,000 more than the fee they had originally agreed upon.

“I ended up paying him $5,000 and I thought that was more than what we agreed upon,” Kuchar said. “I kind of think, if he had the chance to do it over again, same exact deal, that he’d say yes again. I feel like I was fair and good. 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.”