Even in retirement, after all that has been said and done and torn, the old caddie is keeping faith in Tiger Woods’s ability to fashion impossible shots from awful positions.
It’s been less than a fortnight since Steve Williams heard the news at the same time as the rest of us, because his direct line to Woods was severed years ago.
But the bulletin landed with some force, which is to say a ruptured Achilles tendon has been added to a list of injuries that was already longer than anything found in a yardage book. With it, a comeback at the Masters next month has gone, replaced by a familiar question: at 49, is Woods finally done?
Speaking via Zoom from his home in New Zealand, this 61-year-old man, who stood closer to Woods than anyone between 1999 and 2011, is puffing out his cheeks. ‘Look, you can only knock someone down so many times, and that person can only get up so many times,’ Williams tells Mail Sport.
‘To come back from another serious injury, I think that it’s going to be very, very difficult. My take would be that he wants to get himself in a position where he’s 100 percent fit, 100 percent confident in his swing, and then see how he can compete, because the past few years he hasn’t had a chance to find out.
‘He won’t sign off until he absolutely knows his game is not of the standard to win a major. It’s the way he is wired.’
Steve Williams caddied for Tiger Woods through his all-conquering years in golf
His time carrying the bag of a golf icon leaves him with a unique perspective of Woods today
Last week, Woods revealed he had undergone more surgery having torn his Achilles
From there, Williams reaches for a famous memory. You will probably recall the one – 2008 US Open, Torrey Pines, a left leg fractured in two places and a knee in which the cruciate ligament was destroyed.
‘I mean, that was about as banged up as somebody could be,’ he says. ‘I remember our 10th hole on the Friday. Tiger was hitting off a cart path and I could actually hear this bone-on-bone noise from his leg. Sickening.
‘I said to him, “Perhaps it’s time to give it away here”. And he told me to f-off, that he was winning this tournament, and “I don’t give a s*** what you think”. Hey, he won.
‘Look, his muscle memory is better than any pro I know – he can just visualize a shot and make a swing happen. If he can get fit again, I wouldn’t count Tiger out of not only contending in another major, but possibly winning one in the future.’
The sentiment hangs in the air, dangling the world’s biggest ‘if’ and a possibility that most abandoned after Woods nearly died in a car crash 2021. But Williams will be among the last to go to those conclusions, which might just be an act of generosity. Of reconciliation.
Today, there isn’t much of a relationship between the two men – plenty was lost in the split and all that followed, including those awful words from Williams about Woods and his ‘black a***’, for which he remains ashamed.
Having left the sport completely in 2023, Williams barely watches any golf at all, but his insights into one of the most complex figures in the history of sport are unmatched.
In time, we will get to swings, scandals, seals and pork chops across a collaboration that generated 13 of Woods’s 15 major wins and 59 other titles. But before that he is chatting about a book he has just written with the respected Australian journalist Elvin, titled Together We Roared. It’s a very good read. And warmer than one Williams wrote in 2015, which drew a few headlines for suggesting he was treated like a ‘slave’ by Woods.
Alongside Woods, Williams played a key part in one of the most dominant eras in golf
The fact he earned more than $10million on Woods’s bag meant public sympathy was limited. But old animosities appear to have disappeared.
‘Looking back now, I feel blessed to have been part of it with him,’ Williams says. ‘During that time working for Tiger it was difficult to take it all in and enjoy properly.
‘Everything was geared towards catching Jack Nicklaus on 18 majors. I heard that Ernie Els, after he won the Open (in 2012), had a party that lasted 48 hours. With Tiger, it was different. Next major, next major.
Williams has written a book on his time with Woods, called ‘Together We Roared’
‘I will never forget being at the US Open in 2000 after Tiger signed his scorecard. He smashed the record, 15-shot win, and after after a couple of quick words, it’s like, “Stevie, I need you to get over to St Andrews as quick as you can. I want you to know that course like the back of your hand”.
‘There was a lot of pressure, but really it was great to work with a guy playing like that every week.’
Williams is chucking about a thought, because next month marks the 20-year anniversary of Woods’s fourth Masters win and one of his greatest ever shots at the 16th hole of the final round. Woods was a stroke clear of Chris DiMarco, but had gone long into a horrible spot off the back.
With a monstrous slope down towards the creek, and needing to aim 45 degrees left of the flag to stand even a chance of getting close enough for a three, he was at risk of a two-shot swing as DiMarco was in the middle of the green. With the pressure of no major wins in almost two years on his shoulders, Woods downed the chip.
‘Look, he could take that shot with 1,000 balls and not get it in so let’s not forget it was lucky!’ says Williams. ‘But I’ll tell you what people didn’t see. When Tiger walks up to his ball, he sees a pitch mark on the green about the size of a dime 20ft away from his ball and says to me that it was exactly where he needed to land.
‘That ball hit the pitch mark exactly.’
Their high-five celebration became part of an iconic moment. ‘I never knew anyone who hated losing as much,’ Williams says. ‘I worked with Greg Norman and for the two guys at their very best, it would be a very close match, Tiger just taking it, but for wanting to win Tiger was a different level.’
Williams and Woods celebrate after his iconic shot for birdie at the Masters in 2005
Williams shakes hands with Woods while working on Adam Scott’s bag in Australia in 2011
Their arguments were few and far between in the good days. ‘Tiger knew I was trying as hard as him,’ he says. ‘The only real row we had was at the Masters (in 2003).
‘He was a few shots back and I told him to hit driver at the third, but he was reluctant. Anyway, he eventually agrees and then fanned it way out to the right. He was absolutely livid with me and carried on like an absolute pork chop.
‘We didn’t talk for about six holes and when we are going up the ninth, there’s not a lot of gallery there, so I gave him a mouthful. He needed to be dressed down, so I told him, “You’ve hit a s*** shot and blamed me”.
‘We get to the end of the round and he could have very well have fired me. But it went the other way – we grew as a team right there.’
That argument fell in the period between the 2002 US Open and 2005 Masters, when Woods failed to win a major – the worst slump of his career before the scandal. Williams has a clear recollection of what that was like, as he was among the few in whom Woods confided that he was considering walking away and joining the Navy Seals.
‘We were driving to our house for the 2004 US Open when he pulled the car over to tell me that,’ Williams says. ‘I was like, “What?!” Obviously his dad was in the military and Tiger always wanted to be the ultimate warrior, but on the other hand, I could see even then that he maybe needed to escape the world he lived in.’
The latter thought proved prophetic. While some of the attention had mildly amusing consequences – Williams says Woods ‘got a laugh’ out of the time his caddie seized the $7000 camera of an over-zealous photographer and dropped it in a lake – the rest has suffocated the golfer throughout his adult life.
Naturally, that hit a crescendo when news of Woods’s extramarital affairs broke in 2009. At that point, everything began to unravel, including his marriage, career and relationship with Williams, who always maintained he had no idea what was going on behind the mask.
‘It’s obviously something that Tiger’s not proud of and no one would be,’ he says. ‘But it’s just unfortunate that when somebody is put on such a pedestal. I don’t know what was true and what’s not true. But it was a sad time and it derailed Tigers career, no two ways about that.’
It was in the aftermath that another injury opened the door to Williams working with Adam Scott. Unimpressed, Woods fired him in 2011, and Williams would be on the bag when Scott won the 2013 Masters.
‘Looking back, I regret that a little bit but I knew following his return from the extended break, after the scandal, it just wasn’t the same as before,’ he says.
There was petulance in Williams subsequently describing one of Scott’s tour-level wins in 2011 as the ‘greatest’ of his career. There was also outrage at year’s end, when Williams was asked at an award’s dinner to explain why he said it. His response: ‘I wanted to shove it up his black a****’.
Woods took the high road by insisting his former caddie was ‘certainly not a racist’; Williams has been consistent in his acceptance that it ‘was deeply wrong and I’m still apologetic’.
An emotional Woods hugs Williams after winning the 135th British Open at Royal Liverpool
Woods pictured alongside Williams in 2007 as they try and tackle Augusta during The Masters
Some 14 years on, with Williams retired after a brief return to help Scott in 2023, their paths rarely cross now. What was once the tightest pair in the game has faded away almost entirely.
‘I don’t have any contact with Tiger,’ Williams says. ‘The last time I saw him was a couple of years ago at a tournament and we bumped into each other in the hotel. We had a good laugh.
‘Look, there’s no hard feelings – it just goes this way with players and caddies. When they split, it’s like a divorce.
‘But, you know, one day I’d like to think that I’d be welcome to come into his home and have a chat and have a beer when we’re two old guys. I’d like that. But the more time has gone on, I just feel fortunate to have been there with him and watch all that unfold.’
Together We Roared by Steve Williams and Evin Priest is out on April 1 in the United States and April 10 in the UK.
