Kuchar apologizes, pledges $50,000 to Mayakoba caddie Kyle vs. The King: Busch chases Petty for 200 wins
Los Angeles — Matt Kuchar apologized Friday for what he said were insensitive comments about the caddie he used at the Mayakoba Classic in Mexico last fall and said he would pay the $50,000 the caddie requested.
He also said he would make a donation to the tournament to be distributed to charities in the Cancun area.
"Golf is a game where we call penalties on ourselves," Kuchar said in a statement released by the PGA Tour. "I should have done that long ago and not let this situation escalate."
Kuchar's regular caddie couldn't make the trip to Mexico in November, so he used David Ortiz from El Camaleon Golf Club. Kuchar won for the first time in more than four years and earned $1,296,000. Ortiz received $5,000. Kuchar defended the payment — regular PGA Tour caddies typically get 10 percent from the winner — by saying they had an agreement at the start of the week. In an interview with golf.com, Kuchar said he did not understand why there was such a big buzz on social media.
"For a guy who makes $200 a day, a $5,000 week is a really good week," Kuchar said.
Ortiz had told the website he didn't expect the full 10 percent as a fulltime caddie, but that he thought it was worth $50,000. He said he sent three emails to Kuchar's agent, Mark Steinberg at Excel Sports Management, and was offered an additional $15,000, which he turned down because he found it unacceptable.
Now he's getting his money after Kuchar spent the last two days defending the arrangement.
"This week, I made comments that were out of touch and insensitive, making a bad situation worse," Kuchar said.
"They made it seem like I was marginalizing David Ortiz and his financial situation, which was not my intention. I read them again and cringed. That is not who I am and now what I want to represent."
Daytona Beach, Fla. — Kyle Busch had been sprayed with champagne and hoisted his winner's trophy last July at Pocono Raceway when fans sitting high above the stage shouted his name so they could snap a quick photo.
Busch craned his neck to oblige the requests and the signage on the premium seating structure was impossible to miss: the Richard Petty 200 Victory Circle.
NASCAR drivers for a generation have looked up at Petty's record win total, a number as synonymous with The King as his feathered cowboy hats, dark glasses and cowboy boots. "It's just a bunch of wins," Petty said. A whole bunch that add up to one big number that Busch is primed to zip past this season.
It's Kyle vs. The King in the battle for winningest driver in NASCAR history. Sort of.
Petty is NASCAR's undisputed leaders in victories with 200 and each checkered flag was collected in the elite Cup series. He won his first race in 1960 and his last one in Daytona in 1984. Not only is Petty in first, he has no peer — David Pearson, who died in November, is up next with 103. Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon was the only other driver within striking of distance of 100 with 93 Cup wins.
The 33-year-old Busch has 194 NASCAR wins across three series and sits a solid 11th on the career Cup list with 51.
"If he's not the best, he's one of the best," long-time Petty crew chief Dale Inman said.
The debate is raised because Busch accumulated his wins in two other NASCAR series that weren't available in Petty's heyday: Busch has a record 51 wins in the Truck Series (formed in 1995) and 91 more in the second-tier Xfinity Series (1982).
Busch said he would never compare his win total with Petty's.
"Absolutely not because his number is obviously Cup wins and mine's not," Busch said.
Busch seems a lock to pass Petty for the overall mark at some point this season. He won eight times in Cup in 2018 and that total alone would push him past Petty. He is scheduled to race five times this season in Trucks and seven in Xfinity.
Even as Busch posted big Cup seasons, he continued to dip down to the lower levels and race each Friday and Saturday. Busch was the class of each series from 2008 to 2016. He'd sweep race weekends and take his customary bow to thousands of fans booing the outlier who had essentially spoiled a shot at a win for a rising star or lower-series stalwart.
Mike Trout doesn't moonlight in Triple-A. Joel Embiid doesn't mess around on off nights in the G-League. Tired of the complaining, NASCAR implemented rules for 2017 that restricted the number of Trucks and Xfinity races for Cup drivers. It was basically a Kyle Busch rule.
Petty earned his first victory in 1960, his third season on the Grand National circuit, and his 27 victories in 1967 still stand as a single-season record. While Busch has only competed in a 36-race season, Petty drove in 61 races — 61! — in 1964. He made 52 and 54 starts in consecutive seasons (1962-63) and crushed the competition in an era when NASCAR was still a regional series racing on short tracks in the South.