It's probably a 40-50% change in the ratings.That sound you just heard was tomorrow's ratings evaporating.
It's probably a 40-50% change in the ratings.That sound you just heard was tomorrow's ratings evaporating.
Did you just make an overworked twitter post of the week?It's probably a 40-50% change in the ratings.
Probably.Did you just make an overworked twitter post of the week?
It looked like a fairly straightforward chip for Molinari. Bones said that with his lie and the wind, if he hit it one groove to high, he ran the risk of running it through the green and into the water. And that's exactly what happened.What was it?
Would have loved him on the 2018 Ryder Cup Team. Straight hitter, great putter, unflappable, gets along with everyone. Would have been perfect at Le Golf Nacional.Glad to see Kisner win. I’ve lost all respect for Kuchar since the caddy story and to be honest I don’t think he was 100% truthful yesterday either. But Kisner seems like a bunch of guys I grew up with playing golf. Loves his beer, likes hanging out with his buddies. Wouldn’t mind seeing him on a Ryder cup team.
Seems pretty good at match play tooWould have loved him on the 2018 Ryder Cup Team. Straight hitter, great putter, unflappable, gets along with everyone. Would have been perfect at Le Golf Nacional.
He just seems like a regular dude who happens to be really really good at golf.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think he was lying about yesterday? It’s not his fault Sergio is a hot head and tried to back slap in his tap in.Glad to see Kisner win. I’ve lost all respect for Kuchar since the caddy story and to be honest I don’t think he was 100% truthful yesterday either. But Kisner seems like a bunch of guys I grew up with playing golf. Loves his beer, likes hanging out with his buddies. Wouldn’t mind seeing him on a Ryder cup team.
FWIW, in looking at the Saturday results, my above proposal would have led to these matches being played yesterday:No action in this thread because of the popularity of players involved but also because match play is pretty brutal at the end.
It's two guys, and the consolation match, which is useless, except that it doubles the amount of shots they can show. Ultimately, it's pretty boring.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think he was lying about yesterday? It’s not his fault Sergio is a hot head and tried to back slap in his tap in.
As to the caddie thing, I get people thinking he should have thrown him more without getting beat up about it, but I also understand his stance that they had an agreement. I’m not willing to go as far as ‘lost all respect’ but to each their own.
I'm going to disagree pretty strongly with the idea that the reaction here is out-of-proportion.Yeah, I think Kuchar made a mistake in Mexico that has had a massive, out-of-proportion effect on his reputation relative to what should have happened.
What happened with Sergio is on Sergio. Other than Bones Mackay, everyone is crushing Sergio for his stupidity and petulance.Add the Sergio thing the other day, and he really risks becoming a heel in the sport in a way which...well, I don't think "unfair" is the right word, but "unfortunate" probably is.
Here's the agreement Kuchar and his Mexican caddie came to before the tournament, according to this article on Golf.com:This wasn't a "mistake." This was Kuchar getting caught taking advantage of a local caddie specifically because he assumed the caddie had no power to do anything about it. We know this to be true because, after the story broke months later, Kuchar defended his action by saying, "For a guy who makes $200 a day, $5,000 is a really big week." He then added, "I certainly don't lose any sleep over this."
If character is how we act when no one is looking, what does it say about Kuchar that he thought it perfectly acceptable to grossly underpay a man when he knew that if he had simply given him the customary amount for winning a tournament, it would have changed his life?
Kuchar will wear this like a scarlet letter because it is just that he do so.
If you're saying that Kuchar should have offered his caddie normal PGA Tour rates - even though he was apparently doing little more than carrying the bag for him - and he's a cheapskate for not having done so, I can respect that. But I think you're absolutely not giving him the benefit of the doubt beyond that point: he made a deal, and he thought he had a deal. And when the PR around the issue started to blow up, he and his advisors didn't act very smartly or quickly, but I don't think they reacted maliciously, and I certainly don't think that Kuchar thought at the time that he was pulling a fast one in underpaying him or anything like that.Kuchar said he told Ortiz he would pay him $1,000 if he missed the cut, $2,000 if he made the cut, $3,000 if he had a top-20 and $4,000 if he had a top-10. “The extra $1,000 was, ‘Thank you — it was a great week.’ Those were the terms. He was in agreement with those terms."
That is Kuchar’s version. The caddie’s version is $3K plus an unspecified percentage of Kuchar’s winnings. Normal pro caddies get 10% of the players winnings. The local caddie said he wasn’t expecting that much. It seems that the $3,000 for a week of work is a fair rate for a pro to pay a local caddie. The $1,000 or $2,000 tip, depending on who you believe (it sucks either way) on a $1.3 million pay day from a guy who has over $40 milllion in career earnings just on the PGA Tour alone is really shitty. Then he doubled and tripled down before finally making it right.Here's the agreement Kuchar and his Mexican caddie came to before the tournament, according to this article on Golf.com:
If you're saying that Kuchar should have offered his caddie normal PGA Tour rates - even though he was apparently doing little more than carrying the bag for him - and he's a cheapskate for not having done so, I can respect that. But I think you're absolutely not giving him the benefit of the doubt beyond that point: he made a deal, and he thought he had a deal. And when the PR around the issue started to blow up, he and his advisors didn't act very smartly or quickly, but I don't think they reacted maliciously, and I certainly don't think that Kuchar thought at the time that he was pulling a fast one in underpaying him or anything like that.
Should Kuchar have negotiated a different deal in the first place and offered more generous terms? I don't really know how these things work when it comes to substitute/local caddies being hired. But I'm guessing Kuchar's offer wasn't really out of line with standard practice on the Tour. And if that's the case, then yes, I think the reaction to the whole kerfuffle is absolutely over the top.
I'm saying that Kuchar was a dick.Here's the agreement Kuchar and his Mexican caddie came to before the tournament, according to this article on Golf.com:
If you're saying that Kuchar should have offered his caddie normal PGA Tour rates - even though he was apparently doing little more than carrying the bag for him - and he's a cheapskate for not having done so, I can respect that. But I think you're absolutely not giving him the benefit of the doubt beyond that point: he made a deal, and he thought he had a deal. And when the PR around the issue started to blow up, he and his advisors didn't act very smartly or quickly, but I don't think they reacted maliciously, and I certainly don't think that Kuchar thought at the time that he was pulling a fast one in underpaying him or anything like that.
Should Kuchar have negotiated a different deal in the first place and offered more generous terms? I don't really know how these things work when it comes to substitute/local caddies being hired. But I'm guessing Kuchar's offer wasn't really out of line with standard practice on the Tour. And if that's the case, then yes, I think the reaction to the whole kerfuffle is absolutely over the top.
I'm not inclined to give Kuchar the benefit of the doubt.As for the Sergio incident, which @Zomp described well above, I think Kuchar was again slow to realize how his reactions would be perceived. He could, and perhaps should, have said to the rules official that he'd conceded the putt even if he technically hadn't. Or he could have taken the out that Sergio offered. But giving him the benefit of the doubt, I imagine that like most other PGA Tour pros, he's been conditioned to always ask for help from a rules official first when in any doubt at all. Once he did that, the scenario that unfolded was always destined to play out that way. Kuchar clearly isn't a PR wizard - he could have scored points by being brave and offering Sergio the out, just as he could have scored points by tearing up the "agreement" with Ortiz and paying full freight immediately after he'd won the tournament in Mexico. But not being quick-witted doesn't make him a bad guy, or at least it shouldn't, if that is indeed all he's really guilty of.
This is 100% spot on. We've all been there where we accidentally pick up a 6 inch putt assuming it's good (hell I've done it twice in a tournament). Kuch is a disingenuous dick.re: The Sergio and Kuchar thing. Let me explain.
I played a lot of competitive golf as a kid. I won my state's Junior Amateur, I played in countless high school and college matches, and for a bit tried my hand at playing in the senior amateur events in RI before I decided I just wasn't good enough.
All of the big amateur events, a few high school tournaments, and one college tournament were all Match Play. Growing up, all everyone ever said before Match Play tournaments was "Remember, the putt isn't good unless he says it is. Don't assume." I had a situation in a Junior tournament where a kid 4 putted to halve the hole, but instead of finishing it out he went to pick up his ball. Before he did I yelled "Whoa whoa whoa! Hold on! Its good." Because I knew if I didn't say anything he would have lost the hole.
Am I saying Kuchar should have done that? Absolutely not. The mistake is on Sergio 100%
Here's what I have a problem with. Kuchar's explanation.
""And as I looked up again, I saw he had missed the next one," said Kuchar. "And I saw him off the green, I said, 'Sergio, I didn't say anything, I'm not sure how this works out.' I didn't want that to be an issue. So I asked [an official], I said, 'Listen, I don't know how to handle this, but I didn't concede the putt, Sergio missed the putt.'
That's bullshit. He knows he won the hole. I don't for one second think he didn't know what that meant.
So then Sergio says this:
"quite simple," said Garcia. "I screwed it up, it's as simple as that. Obviously I missed my putt and I kind of tapped it with the back of my putter before he said anything. Yeah, it's a loss of hole. I understand that. The only issue that it was, was that Kooch was like, 'I didn't see it good, but I don't want to take the hole. I don't want to do this like this.'
"So I was like, 'Okay, it's fine, what do you want to do?' Because there are many options that you can do if you don't want to take the hole, even though I've already lost that hole. But obviously he didn't like any of the options that were there. It's fine. At the end of the day, I'm the one that made the mistake."
So if I'm Sergio, and Kuchar comes up to me apologizing and saying he didn't want to win a hole like that, I'd say exactly what he did. If Good Guy Kuch was really feeling guilty, Sergio tried to give him an out. Okay then, concede the next hole and we're even. But Kuch didn't want to do that. Because he knew what he was doing.
Again, Sergio is wrong. But Kuch, in my mind, had two options. As they are walking off the hole tell the official he conceded the putt and walk away like nothing happened, or just tell Sergio "Hey man, unlucky but I never gave that to you" and move on. Don't try to be all "Oh gee, oh I don't want to win like that...golly I just don't know what to do."
After the Caddy thing, which wasn't taken out of proportion considering he could have given him half of what his normal caddy made and looked like a hero, he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.
This is silly. We're not talking about any of the recent rules changes. We're talking about something that is so fundamental to match play that every club player understands it.(And AR, do you really not think going to the rules official first - especially in the new 2019 rules environment - is conditioned into many Tour players these days? It's not like Kuchar plays match play more than once or twice a year.)
And top 4 by a mile. I wouldn't have placed him in the top 10. Adam Scott (who has now been around for a LONG time) is almost 30% behind Vijay, which is bonkers to me. And Vijay won before the purses increased dramatically. I'm impressed with his earnings number.I would never have guessed that Vijay was #3 in earnings.
The whole interview is better. What a great listen, Jake Owen has a ton of cool stories.