Manuel Elvira had one swing standing between him and the biggest win of his career: the 2026 BMW PGA Championship. Instead, the 18th at Wentworth did what it so often does to players in that exact moment, turning a promising finish into a nightmare. As Elvira’s tournament unravelled over the next four shots, golf Twitter moved quickly. Within minutes, his caddie, Carlos Gonzalez, was facing questions—and accusations—that his decisions had cost Elvira the title. But days later, someone with a far closer understanding of the caddie-player dynamic has stepped in to offer a different perspective and set the record straight.

Speaking to the National Club Golfers, Matt Chivers, an anonymous veteran looper known as the Secret Tour Caddy, stepped in and pushed back hard against the idea that Gonzalez was at fault.

“The temptation here might be to lump on the caddy, but for me, anybody who does it is just lazy and pretty arrogant. Here’s the reality of the situation: the tactics on the final hole were absolutely fine. You’ve got a player whose tendency is a draw pattern, and that hole sets up as a big fade.”

He continued to add, “Even when a player has the opportunity to throw the caddy under the bus and he doesn’t, then that’s a sign that it was, in fact, the player making a bad swing, absolving the caddy of blame and any lazy pile-ons.”

To understand why the stake matters, you need the full picture of what unfolded. Elvira had just made an eagle on the 17th at Wentworth to draw level with clubhouse leader J. J. Spaun. He stood on the final tee, needing a birdie to win Europe’s flagship event outright. Instead of reaching for the driver, he and Gonzalez opted for an iron off the tee, a decision that immediately raised eyebrows given the format is a par-5, one that big hitters can often reach in two.

From there it unraveled in four shots. His tee shot found the fairway short, setting up a layup that inexplicably finished in a fairway bunker. Then his third shot was played from the sand and flew the green entirely. The disaster continued as his fourth then plugged into a greenside bunker. It was a critical situation, and by the time he holed out, Elvira had carded a double-bogey seven on the hole that was supposed to hand him his first big European title.

And that’s the moment when the blame game on the caddy started. Regardless, according to the secret tour caddy, the tee shot decision was a rather sound one. The plan was that Elvira would draw the ball, and the 18th at Wentworth would set up for a fade off the tee. So hitting a three-wood into a right-to-left wind would have brought the fairway bunkers squarely into the play. The iron, he argued, was the percentage play, and “Elvira executed it perfectly.”

So for the Secret Tour Caddy, the planning was good, but the execution wasn’t, and Elvira simply overcooked the shot, sending it into a fairway bunker he was never supposed to visit.

Notably, the experienced caddie also hinted at a much bigger problem—that is, the hole itself. For context, the 18th on Wentworth’s West Course was never a simple finishing hole. A 3 million redesign in 2010 added a brook in front of the green, turning what used to be a straightforward eagle chance into a genuine hazard.

Furthermore, a second rework in 2017 was added to soften it slightly. But the hole still asks the players to navigate a dogleg right, fairway bunkers off the tee, and water guarding the green, all at just over 500 yards. Realistically, it is short enough to tempt players into going for it, long enough to make that temptation dangerous. It’s precisely that tension between the opportunity and the risk that turns one bad swing into a huge pile-on.

That said, neither Elvira nor Gonzalez has said much publicly about the incident. But notably, this isn’t the first time the 18th has created problems for the players or for the caddies.

More Than One Player Has Struggled

Back in 2013, Lee Westwood found the water with his approach on the first playoff hole, handing the BMW PGA Championship to fellow Englishman Luke Donald. It was almost the exact scenario Elvira faced: a title slip away from the same stretch of grass, in front of the same grandstands, because one shot didn’t come off well.

What’s notable is how Westwood responded to the whole scenario. Rather than pointing at his caddy or the course, he put it squarely on himself, saying, “It was more my fault than the shot.”

He further admitted he hadn’t executed the shot he wanted, that it drew too much, and that it landed short of where he was aiming. It’s, in fact, a reminder that instinct sometimes loses its curvature at the 18th hole.

As for caddies being blamed for a mishap, it is also not new. Rory McIlroy’s caddie, Harry Diamond, took criticism from TV pundits after McIlroy bogeyed on the 15th during the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst. The analysts then suggested Diamond should have “stepped in” on club selection more promptly.

For now, as the Secret Tour Caddie pointed out, the player always makes the final call. But regardless, a bad hole shouldn’t mash either the player or the caddie.