Pro golfer 'stiffs' caddy, becomes pariah. Thoughts?

[Seadog]

Saw this article the other day. Basically pro golfer Matt Kuchar was down in Mexico, his regular caddy couldn't make it, so he got a fill in. He ends up winning $1.3m, then offers the caddy the agreed upon money($4k), plus a $1000 tip. Not bad for a few days work I thought.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/article-matt-kuchar-the-rich-golfer-who-stiffed-his-caddie/

The internet however thought differently. Apparently, the 'going rate' for a tip is 5-10%, closer to the 10% if he finishes in the top 10. The caddy was expecting a minimum of $50k for his weekends work, if not well into 6 figures, and by not paying it he has been castigated by the media as a miserly scrooge.

As I was reading the story, I was kind of on the golfer's side. $5k for less than a week's work is a spectacular payday regardless, forget the fact you're in Mexico where the minimum wage is a few dollars a day. They had an agreement, he more than lived up to it. Had the golfer lost, would the caddy of offered to waive half his fee?

The comments on the story (not sure why I still read comments...) lambasted him be being so cheap. I'm not sure why I think it's dumb, the fact that he's outraged over the $5k payday, or the fact that 5-10% is the expected tip, even if it means paying hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think too I'm just annoyed at human nature. Whenever a big pile of money shows up not wholly expectedly, everyone and their dog has their paws out.

Other people's thoughts? Or am I just just as miserly as this Matt guy. The flavour de jour nowadays seems to railroad people (especially millennials) for an entitlement mindset. But here you have someone who made hundreds of times the local minimum wage, a rate that would put him squarely in 1%er territory in the US, forget about Mexico, and he's griping to the world that it wasn't 10x higher, and they're taking his side.

[SnipTheDog]

You should be able to negotiate a price prior to work being done.  If that was the negotiated price, then I'm good with it.  Steady Eddie (Kuchar) eventually gave the caddy 10% of his prize for winning the tourney.

[nippycrisp]

A typical PGA Tour caddie gets 10% of a win, and usually a lower percentage of lower-down finishes. They get a base salary of a couple grand to cover travel/costs, but if their "guy" doesn't make it into the top half of the field when they make the halfway cut they get nothing.

This caddie wasn't a PGA Tour caddie. He was a local guy with no travel costs who accepted a guaranteed payday with a guy who is a known moneymaker (who was also playing well). He probably had no leverage to negotiate a better deal, but I'd guess he was happy when the week started.

Then Kuchar won 1.3 million bucks and someone did the math. Kuchar tipped an extra 20% (1K), but the guy obviously wanted to believe he should receive the benefits of a tour caddie with none of the risk. Since the deal was already in place, the only way to get more money was to complain publicly and hope that the golfer decided to up his pay.

It worked - the internet did its thing and it was cheaper in the long run for Kuchar to pay the nuisance suit. But there's a trade-off for cashing in - this guy will never work a PGA Tour event again, for the same reason that Colin Kaepernick will never play in the NFL.

[Pizzabrewer]

...and Matt Kuchar will hear about it the rest of his career.  From hecklers in the gallery to sponsors who will drop him and/or sponsors who will not sign him after this fiasco.

He fucked up.

[Pizzabrewer]

Steady Eddie (Kuchar) eventually gave the caddy 10% of his prize for winning the tourney.

Nope.  He paid 3.8%.  Only after being shamed.

He's not the hero here.

[HPstache]

Even though Kuchar was in the right, the public is going to see this as a massive wrong and they're probably going to label him a racist to boot.  I don't think race had anything to do with this.  It's tradition to pay your caddy a portion of your winnings, but for all intents and purposes, this was not his caddy.  This was a stand-in that carried his bags.  HIS caddy is the person that has stuck with him thru thick and thin throughout his career.  They one who helps him with yardage, advises him on shots, leaves his/her family to travel with him, stands in the rain with him, laughs with him, cries with him, likely for years if not decades.  HIS caddy is the one that gets the 5-10% of his career winnings, because he or she is a integral part of his career.  He fulfilled his contract with the stand-in caddy, and even gave him a tip.  Nothing wrong with that in my personal opinion, if anything, sounds like he was blackmailed for more money.