Tiger Woods and Steve Williams were one of the greatest player-caddie duos in golf history.
Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images for Golf Week
With over a decade on Tiger Woods’ bag, a stretch that featured many of Tiger’s greatest moments, Steve Williams was likely often left in shock by the 15-time major winner’s on-course heroics. But it was one gesture of kindness that surprised Williams more than anything.
The former caddie revealed Tiger’s most surprising gesture from their time working together, along with a great anecdote from Woods’ epic 2000 season, in a new podcast interview.
Steve Williams reveals Tiger gesture that most surprised him
With Williams carrying his clubs and offering advice, Woods dominated the golf world from 1999-2011. Tiger won 13 majors and dozens of PGA Tour events with Williams at his side, making them arguably the greatest player-caddie duo in history.
Their relationship would not last, and their professional divorce was often ugly, public and, at times, personal.
When Williams was asked what it was like when he first started caddying for Tiger in 1999, Williams revealed one simple gesture Woods offered up every day that left him shocked: thanking him for his help.
“The thing that stood out for me more than anything when I first went to caddie for Tiger, after every single round, good or bad, indifferent, whatever, ‘Thanks for your help today, Steve,'” Williams shared.
Williams contrasted Tiger’s post-round reaction to his experience with other pros, who could be cold following bad rounds.
“A lot of times when you are carrying for guys, and things don’t go well, and you have a bad day, they’d rather not see you. They don’t want to talk to you. They don’t want to see you,” Williams said, laughing. “But he, it was remarkable, every day he thanked me for the job. And as a young guy under the pressure that he was… I couldn’t believe it.”
Williams also spoke at length about Woods’ incredible desire to win.
“When you get somebody that’s at the top of the game, whether it be Rory [McIlroy], whether it be Scottie Scheffler now, it just comes down to the desire of wanting to win, and that’s where Tiger was just incredible,” Williams explained. “His desire to win was beyond belief to be honest. And his only measure of a successful week was when he won a golf tournament. If he didn’t win the tournament, it wasn’t a successful week. So to work for someone under that kind of pressure was very intense.”
He continued, “The amount of pressure that was involved with caddying for Tiger was probably beyond comprehension. But I tired to sort of put that all together in the book and give people a bit of an idea what it was like to caddie for him.”
Williams said that despite dominating the competition at a historic level, Tiger was “disgusted” by a couple of holes he played that week at Pebble Beach (Woods finished 12 under at Pebble; no other player finished under par).
Woods badly wanted to somehow perform even better at the next major, the 2000 Open Championship at St. Andrews. So moments after signing his winning scorecard at Pebble, Tiger gave Williams an order.
“He said, ‘Stevie, I want you to get your ass over to St. Andrews, I’m going to play even better than I did this week. I want you to know the course as good as you can possibly know that course,” Williams explained.
Williams then spent a week at the Old Course to get to know every nook and cranny. It turns out it was worth the effort.
“And to Tiger’s credit, if you asked me what was the best 72-hole event he played, it was that tournament [the 2000 Open at St. Andrews]. He didn’t hit it in one bunker and he didn’t miss it one shot. That was the best performance in the 12 years I caddied for him… it was unbelievable.”
Woods won the 2000 Open at the Old Course with a total score of 19 under, which at the time was the lowest score-to-par in major championship history. His margin of victory? Eight shots.
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