Williams also claimed he lost a friend in Woods (Image: Getty Images)
Steve Williams, who was Tiger Woods’ caddie during the peak of his success, was famously dismissed for temporarily switching to another player. The Kiwi golfing caddie supported Woods on various challenging courses around the globe between 1999 and 2011, a pivotal aid to Woods’s remarkable collection of 15 major career victories and record 82 PGA Tour titles – nine more than golfing titan Jack Nicklaus.
Thanks to this unparalleled run of victories, Williams accumulated an estimated net worth of £15.7million ($20m), chiefly due to his wage packet and a fraction of Woods’ competition earnings. With Williams accompanying him, Woods clinched 64 of his tour triumphs, 13 of his 15 majors, bagged the Tour Player of the Year award nine times, and secured a lofty 281-week tenure as World No. 1 from June 2005 to October 2010.
However, this prosperous period ended abruptly for Williams, who has previously divulged why Woods relieved him of his duties. In a 2021 documentary on Woods, Williams said: “After the Masters, Tiger took a little bit of a break away from the game just to get his mind fresh as well as to deal with some niggling injuries. As a caddie of Tiger Woods and a great friend of his, I wanted to deeply respect what he was going through but I still didn’t know when he would be playing again.”
He went on: “I was just expecting a phone call at any moment to say ‘I’m playing again next week, get your s*** together and get over here’. There was a lot of uncertainty. So when a friend I had caddied for before called me and asked me if I could caddie for him, I ran that by Tiger and he said absolutely no problem.”
However, the circumstances soon changed with Woods taking a U-turn, allegedly having someone call Williams to announce that the caddie’s professional services would be terminated if he went ahead to serve another player. Recalling the event, Williams said: “But a couple of days before the tournament, Tiger changed his mind.
“He had his agent call and he said ‘If you go and caddie for your friend, that will be the end of your time caddying for Tiger’. I thought there was no way the guy is going to fire me. But a couple of days after the tournament I got the phone call to say our time had ended. I believe in my own heart I gave 100 per cent when I was caddying for Tiger the entire time I was with him and for him to fire me over that kind of thing. I found that pretty unusual.”
Steve Williams caddied for Woods between 1999 and 2011 (Image: Getty Images)
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It was Adam Scott that Williams was serving at the 2011 US Open as an interim during Woods’ absence, but the caddie believes he lost more than just a professional relationship in that tournament. He added: “When he fired me, I thought he was firing me as a golf caddie and not as a friend.
“Tiger was the best man at my wedding, I didn’t think we’d have no communication for the rest of our lives. That just didn’t even enter my mind. To this day I find that a hard pill to swallow. Someone you spend 13 years with, with all your time and all your effort, and the guy can’t even speak to you.”
After the split, Williams worked with Scott until 2017 before briefly caddying for Jason Day in 2019. He joined forces with Scott again between 2022 and 2023. Meanwhile, Woods hasn’t clinched a major title since his 2019 Masters victory.
