WELCOME BACK: “El Tucan” Caddying on the PGA TOUR

One of the craziest stories from the past year on the PGA TOUR was the issues between Matt Kuchar and David “El Tucan” Ortiz. Now that a year has passed, El Tucan is reappearing on the PGA TOUR.

For those who don’t remember the story from last year, El Tucan stepped in as Matt Kuchar’s emergency caddie at the Mayakoba Classic. Ortiz is one of the usual caddies on the popular course in Cancun and because of his inside knowledge, Kuchar won the tournament. Unfortunately, news broke of Kuchar stiffing his caddie of money that they had agreed to for his work. This situation ended on a positive note for both sides, thankfully.

This year, Kuchar has his regular caddie on his bag, John Wood. However, this hasn’t stopped El Tucan from returning to the Mayakoba Classic. El Tucan is now caddying a new golfer, Rob Oppenheim. Oppenheim was a late addition to the tournament and was able to get a quick flight down to Cancun but his caddie, who’s located in Boston, wasn’t able to do the same. Enter El Tucan.

Embed from Getty Images

Once Oppenheim arrived on Wednesday, he immediately began his search for a new caddie for the week. He had asked several colleagues for suggestions on who could carry his bag but that’s when he remembered El Tucan. Oppenheim was able to get contact info for Ortiz and connect with him. From there, the two came to an agreement and now Oppenheim will have last year’s winning caddie on his bag.

Apparently, there were quite a few golfers who needed caddies this week but El Tucan wasn’t an option for most. Oppenheim thinks publicity might have played a role in that. “It’s not like he didn’t want to be here,” Oppenheim said. “Maybe some guys didn’t want to deal with the [attention] of it. I didn’t look at it that way; it was a good fit for me. [What Kuchar did] was last year. I just want to give myself the best chance to play well.”

Even with the apparent hatchet buried, this sets up a major rematch between El Tucan and Kuchar to see if either can repeat last year successes. Make sure to check in this week to see if either of the two end up near the top of the leaderboard come Sunday.

Cover Image Via Twitter