Subpar - Steve Williams reveals why he intentionally gave Tiger Woods the wrong yardage, the two greatest shots he witnessed him hit

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

On this week's episode of GOLF's Subpar, Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz are joined by longtime PGA Tour caddie Steve Williams for an exclusive interview. The man on Tiger Woods' bag for 13 years breaks down the pressure of working for the world's best golfer, the greatest shots he ever saw him hit and the biggest argument they ever had. --Download the Fanatics Sportsbook today and use code SUBPAR and you will get $200 in Bonus Bets when you sign up and bet $20 or more. ⁠https://joinfanatics.com/subpar⁠ Must be 21+. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, Connecticut residents call [phone],  Massachusetts residents call (800)-327-5050, New York residents call (877) 8-HOPENY, Maryland residents visit ⁠mdgamblinghelp.org⁠.--Didn’t think the G-Rok could get better? The new G-Rok Pro is louder, stronger, and built to handle whatever your round looks like. Use code SUBPAR for 25% off at rokform.com.--Performance is in your hands with Golf Pride, the #1 grip in golf worldwide. Get 20% off a full set (up to 13 swing grips + 1 putter grip) with code SUBPAR20 at ⁠https://GolfPride.com⁠ — now through August 31. --The future of American golf is here. The USGA’s National Development Program is guiding top juniors to the highest levels of the game—regardless of background. Learn more at usga.org/usndp.--The road to opportunity is often the road overlooked. That’s why Enterprise Mobility offers new roads to help drive your business forward. With mobility solutions like fleet management, flexible truck rental, and an unmatched global network, they can help your business find the right solutions. Their mobility experts find smarter ways to scale your business, so you’re not just growing bigger—you’re getting better. Find your road at enterprisemobility.com--Choose your style, pick your favorite Birdie Juice logo and shop from a line-up of top tier brands at shop.golf.com today!

All right, here we go. Welcome back to Golf Subpar with Colt Nost and Drew Stulton. As always, subpar is brought to you by Fanatic Sportsbook and great golf's coming, including some huge majors, and Fanatic Sportsbook has even more ways to get in on the action. The latest update, you can now parlay multiple players. Combine picks like the outright winner with top five, 10, or 20 finishes, hold scores, and even who makes the cut. Plus, me and Drew were dropping our weekly subpar picks right in the Fanatic Sportsbook app so you can ride with us every week. And if you're new, here's a bonus. Sign up and bet $20 and you'll get $200 in bonus bets. Just use the code subpar when you join. So much great golf ahead and so many ways to bet, all in the Fanatic Sportsbook app.

Not available in all states. Terms apply. See Fanatic Sportsbook app. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. Connecticut, 888-7-7-77. Massachusetts call 1-800-3-27-50, New York, 8778 Hope, N.Maryland, MD-Gamblinghelp.org. All right. Let's get this thing rolling right here. We got a man that won on the PGA tour that's not even old enough to gamble. 20-year-old Aldrich Potkeeter is your winner of the Rocket Classic three-man playoff. Him, Chris Kirk, Max Grazeman, went five holes. Never thought I was going to get out of Detroit.

But in the end, Aldrich Pock Geeter with about a 20-foot birdie puttut on the fifth extra hole to get it done. This guy absolutely smashes. I feel like we talked a lot about him earlier this year. Yeah. I went around San Diego at Tori Pines. I mean, this is the future, dude. 1.95 ball speed just absolutely hits bombs and he can roll the rock. And by the way, Max Graysonman was like right next to him the whole time.

I mean, they were hitting, I know it's hot, it's firm up there, ball was bouncing, but they were just hitting some weird yardages out there. They weren't the only ones either. There was a bunch of people. But, Pott Geter, man, I think he's got the best game on tour. When he plays good, he either wins, contends, finishes high, and when he doesn't, he goes home on the weekend. You like that? It's the best way to be in the world.

He's played 15 events on tour this. year 10 missed cuts and the five that he's made, he's got to win and he's only finished outside the top 15 one time. I think some of that's like youth, you know, he's a rookie, dude, he's 20 years old, youngest kid on the PGA tour loaded with game, but I think there's just some like figuring out going on out there. When he drives it good, he's going to be tough to beat. The short game is really the only kind of glaring thing.

I think he's 156th, if I'm not mistaken, and scrambling. Everything else is solid. His putting's fine. I mean, he's a really good putter. He hits bombs. Like I said, he should have two wins. on the year. I mean, Brian Gamble's ball in Mexico was out of bounds when a damn monkey threw it back in and he goes on to win or else he would be looking at a multiple win season right now. But this is a guy that just took a month off, went back to South Africa, finished tied for six that Colonial was a little sounded like burnout a little bit, a little homesick.

I mean, it's a big deal going from living in South Africa at 18, 19 years old. I mean, your whole life, but then coming over here, it gets very lonely for him. Obviously, doesn't have a ton of friends over here. His dad travels with him a lot. but took a little month off to reset, went up to London on his way back to the United States, got all new clubs, switched golf balls, everything, got dialed in.

He's actually using a 44-inch driver, which is an inch to an inch and a half shorter than pretty much every other guy's driver out there, and he still has 193 to 196-mile-an-hour ball speed. That's what's terrifying. I mean, 45-inch driver, he's going to have 200-mile-an-hour ball speed, no problem. Yeah, I mean...

But he doesn't need it. He's trying to, like, tone it back, and he's, I mean, he had 196 in the playoff. I read a quote from his... coach, and he's like, man, I'd really like to get him, like, cruising just around, like, 185 to 90. How many features do you hear to say that? I wish my guy was slower.

I wish my guy was slower. Yeah, exactly. And, I mean, it was a hell of a good tournament, man. I know, like, the field, you look at it. It's not the superstars that jump off. That's just the world we're going to live in now with signature events and non-signature events. However, you are getting some more names than I think you do in years past now, because, like, you'll see this week of the John Deere.

Like, there's some names that don't play that thing typically. Have to now. Need to. Got to get inside the top 100. Like, it's all shrinking, and you're seeing more and more names up there. But, man, I think for a 20-year-old kid, what he's done, like you mentioned, damn, I mean, fractions. One of the weirdest bounces of all time away from being a two-time winner as the youngest guy on the PJ Tour. Jeff Ogilvy, got to be happy seeing this.

There's another president's cup before you, a young gun coming up. And, like, I don't know how good he can be yet. He might never win again. He might win a bunch of stuff. But all he's done since he started playing golf is the youngest winner on the Corn Ferry, tour. Second youngest graduate ever off that tour. Now he's the winner as the youngest guy on the PGA tour.

Like, he hadn't slowed down at all. He's under every level. I mean, he's got something that you really can't teach. And that's just elite speed. I mean, you're just blessed with that. Yeah, we got it. Exactly. Luckily.

But he's the longest guy on the PGA tour. He could be even longer. He's 20. I mean, if he gets in the gym, gets a lot stronger as well, look out. I don't know what to expect from him. Getting used to these golf courses over here on the PGA tour, I'm sure he'll be better next year. but to miss as many cuts as he did is just is wild.

But he's fun to watch, man. I love watching him. He drove it so good last week. Just when you have that kind of speed, you can hit the random foul ball, and he just didn't do it last week. It was able to pick up his win. We hadn't, you mentioned the tournament was pretty exciting.

At one point on Saturday, on the back nine, there was 32 guys within two shots of the lead. Yeah. That just doesn't happen. I know. And at that point, like, no offense to Podgeeter, but I was like, there was a handful of names. I was like, watch him.

He's going to do it. Watch this guy. He's going to do it. it. And we ended up with, you know, Chris Kirk is the old vet. By the way, 40 now, against the 30-year-old and the 20-year-old feeling ancient. What's he got? Was that for his six? He's got six. He's got six wins. It would have been for seven, like sneaky, just big career out there. I thought he had it on the first level. So we actually were on the same plane going from there to Zach Johnson's charity event, Cedar Rapids, and we were talking and just

about how much the games changed and all this. I totally forgot. Chris Kirk finished second in the FedEx Cup several years ago. Should have won. The year. Billy Horschel won. Chris Hatt was the number one seed going into Eastlake, finished fourth for the week, and Billy Horshawrishel overtook him to win the FedEx Cup. I was like, damn, I almost forgot Chris Kirk won the FedEx Cup. You've been around a long time.

And he's one that Georgia gets a bunch of, but he's been good for forever. He was really good in college, came out, been really good ever since then. He's 40 now. Still good. Yeah. Six wins, almost seven. I thought he was going to end it right out of the gate there. Nine footer down the hill to win.

I thought he was going to get it done. But it was an awesome week in Detroit. They're ripping that golf course up. up as we speak. So we're going to expect a much different Detroit golf club next year. Did not see Eminem at any point while I was there. It's kind of sad. Did you go to Mom Spaghetti.

Yeah, saw it. Didn't go, but I saw it. Try by our hotel. Uh-huh. But yeah, fun week there, man. Became a man in Detroit. That's right, dude. This first time in person since you became a man.

You need to be a man in Detroit. Four years old. Congratulations. Officially a man. Just two men talking shop here. It's nice. Congratulations. Thank you.

Did you get blasted? Yeah. Okay. Of course. New York City. Straight into that, we did an interview from New York City last week. I think almost died because of heat exhaustion, dehydration. It was a hell of a way to turn 40.

That's a hell of a way to turn 40. And you got to follow it up at Zach Johnson's deal. You got to meet one of the exciting whites. How about that? Did I ever? A little endangered species. This one was tough for me, Sleys. We're up there.

Zach always has a bunch of tour players come out, LPGA guys, and then he gets some just random celebs. Most of them have ties to Iowa. Like Caitlin was there last year, right? Caitlin was there a couple years ago. Ninth best player in the WMBA. According to the players. Yeah.

Solid player. I believe it might have been ninth best guard as well as I continue to read up on that. There's a lot of great players. Yeah. So I was looking at the list and spot him from across the room. I remember at the bar, the Super Bowl champion. Philadelphia Eagle, Cooper DeGine. There he was.

I just was like, I kind of hate you. You're an eagle. You're a champion. You had a pick six in the Super Bowl. It's the sixth. And I find out he loves golf and he's the nicest human on the planet. Now I actually like the guy. Yep.

You're going to get a jersey now. No, I'm not getting a jersey. I'll get an Iowa Cooper, does he in Jersey, man, what a dude. What a dude, his high school basketball clips. You've seen those? Everything. I mean, that's a joke.

Probably did whatever. He's probably good at golf. Do you see him swing it? Yeah, he swings it very hard, shockingly. Okay. Didn't really know where it's going, so I'm only hit a couple, but yeah, he's got some serious speed as you expect a elite athlete to have. But like a awesome dude, man, really, I will say this.

And this is, give him a little shit right here. I will just because he's an eagle and I can do this. I told him. Sunday night I said, hey, I'm calling you out onto the tea for the clinic. We're going to talk a little football. Like, all right deal. We didn't quite show up on time. Showed up right as we were getting the tournament underway.

I was like, hey, Siriani would not be having this. You show up late. You're running some sprints or something. You have a pick six in the Super Bowl. You show up when you want. Okay, fine. Whatever. Well, I was very disappointed.

I didn't get to give him some shit during the play. We need to get him on the show. We might have to get Riley Moss in the house, too, just do ultimate endangered species. You'd have the biggest chub of all times. That'd be a big one for me. I'm not going to lie. In multiple ways.

Throw in Jason Williams and oh my God. Forget it. Don't even talk like that. Is jerk available? Call his ass into the mix as well. But that's a great event. Got to give love to Zach and his foundation. They just doing unbelievable job.

Max Homeland played, Ricky Fowler, Jake Knapp. Sigfried was there. Grayson Sig, as Phil likes to call him. I was going to say, where was Roy? Yeah, but Azahara Munoz was there. Megan Kang, who I've always heard, has an incredible personality. It's hilarious.

Yes, she is. She is fantastic. We need to get her on the show as well. Every hole I saw her on, she was dancing and playing the air guitar with her driver. I was like, this girl's got energy. I like this. Respect.

Good squad up there. As always, it was a party. I had my rock form speaker going, as always, entertaining the folks at the bar and on the golf course. And we didn't think the G-Rock could get much better. But the new G-Rock, it's a serious upgrade. The sound is next level,

30 watts of clean, balanced audio with legit subwoofer and tweeter. It's got 30% more magnet strength. So once it's on the cart, it's not going anywhere. 24-hour battery life doubles as a power bank, and now you compare unlimited speakers. 2, 10, 100 if you want.

Oh my God. That's what we need. We should do 100. We need a hondo. We need them to hear us at SpaceX. Still waterproof, still dustproof, and now even better looking and feeling. Use code subpar, check out for 25% off your G-Rockpro at rockform.com.

That's R-O-K-F-R-M dot com. Trust us. You'll hear the difference. And I agree with them. It's better. It's awesome. and it lasts forever. It is sick.

It's hard to believe it. The other ones were awesome, too, but it's remained indestructible. The battery's bigger. If you can, if someone gets together and somehow hooks up 100 of these things, that would probably measure, like, on the Richter scale. We need to try it. We just need, yeah, we would just order 100. I was going to say we need 98 friends, but screw that.

Just go right out here in the parking lot, let's see what happens. Yeah, let's try to talk to some aliens. All right. One other thing we should get to. I thought that a lot of people took notice of this past week. Roger Maltby and Padrick Harrington getting a little argument at the U.S. Senior Open. Padrick was not too happy

when Raj didn't help him look for his golf ball on the 15th hole when he hit it into the shit. Obviously, Roger came out and defended himself. Like, look, my boss told me to be ready to kind of explain the situation down there. I couldn't be down there in the weeds looking for your ball and do that at the same time. That's my boss. But it was interesting because Patrick, obviously,

one of the most respected guys there is. We love him here. Same thing with Roger. One of the most respected guys to ever roam the fairways out there. for TV. Everybody loves Roger. That one was a little surprising, though. It also sucks, too, that that was supposed to be like a private moment and someone filmed it and then put it out there.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think you can expect it to be private anymore if you're doing it wide open. There's people sitting there waiting for autographs from Padraig. It's like they decided to hash it out there. I found that weird, but those two guys was surprising. It's like, those are two first ballot hall famers. You know what I mean? For what they do, respectively. And I get Padraig's point, like, dude, help me look for my

ball. We're trying to find it. But also, like, that ain't his job. You know what I mean? Roger doesn't hand him the pack walking down the ferrobed. Why don't you call some shots for your boys here? It's like, I'm doing a job. My boss is telling me what to do. If I could help you look for your ball, I probably would. But also I've been around the game a long time, and I think he knows the proper protocols there. It wasn't like that heated. You know what I mean? It was like, it was pretty respectful. It could have gotten a lot worse. And Padraig Harrington ended up, I guess,

apologizing after the fact, which, and Roger accepted it. And then he went on to win in the golf tournament. So no one cares anymore. But at that moment, it was just weird to see those two guys. because, like, I think each of them are held in pretty high regard by everybody, but it's fine. And look, I get it. And I've heard both sides of this. Like, me, I've always been a guy that I'm going to go down there and help if I can. Mostly, like, I'm 80 to 100 yards ahead of the T-box. Like, I have a better idea of where the ball went in than they do.

And also, I'm going to get there before them, which also helps the clock doesn't start until they get there. So I can help them try to find it. You know, I spoke to Doddy Pepper about this. She's always been told you're not part, you do not become part of the story. like you're there to report the news, not be the news. So I get that side as well. It's not our job to go down there and look for their golf ball, but as someone around the situation,

like I'm happy to go in there and try to help find the guys. And maybe if you find it, someone gives you a little kickback, you know, if it helps them out a little bit. Yeah, but if they're talking to you in the headset or that, like, you know, hey, we're about to go live with the report and all this stuff. You can't be like trompling around in the weeds.

By the way, that was a dense place you hit it into. Even if they found it, I was like, what are you doing? You know, I hit it out. Two clubs probably doesn't get you back in play either. So, uh, totally agree. Move point. It ends up winning the thing, uh, but everyone loves each other. We move on.

Except for Brooks Kefka doesn't like the T-markers on the ninth that Meridav. There's a lot of golfers that don't like a lot of shit right now. Dude, are we not in like an angry face right now? I mean, you can go down the list. Windham's had some boo-boos. Brooks had a one that, I mean, tough to see on the camera angle, but I was like, that could have gone straight in. There was, there was people there.

That could have been bad. Um, Justin Thomas had like the little weird club flip. It wasn't like a throw, but that almost took somebody out. Who else am I missing? Stephen Yeager had a freak out. Vicious. This week. I mean, guys are just losing their brains.

We're just late in the season and everyone hates golf and frustrating as hell. Terrell Hatton, I mean, he hasn't changed. It doesn't matter if it's January, June or July. He's the same. He obviously thinks there's a lot better holes on the planet than one of the par five's there at Merido. That's strange because he likes a lot of golf courses. That was funny, though. The Brooks thing was scary to me just because I was like, God, I can't.

Tirol doesn't like break shit and throw things. He just talks. He just says things. Although he did do the gun, the putter gun, turned his putter into a gun, which is probably like, I just feel like we're in an era right now. We're in a phase right now where there's a lot of pissed off golfers. Some of it is funny. Some of it I laugh at. But the ones where like clubs almost hit spectators or things, that's going to be like, I was going to be a big problem if and when that happens.

A metal T-marker that a man swung a drive right and it took off flying. Rory smashed one at the U.S. Open forgot about that. He didn't hit it at anyone, but like people were freaking out. I'm not defending Rory on that, but that wasn't just like, that was just kind of, bam. I mean, and it just happened to be a cheap-ass plastic T-marker. Yeah, that's still. Still shouldn't do it, though. Bush, you can't break.

Yeah, but then Brooks went on to withdraw because of illness and then came back on Sunday to play for the team. Yeah, back one-day illness. I get those all the time. They call the hangovers. The bogey-frews dirty, man. Now that you're a man, you'll see they last a little longer. Do they? Yeah, it's like three, four.

I'm literally just getting over one from JJ's U.S. Open celebration. party. Yeah, did you drive down from Wisconsin to come to that party? We're going to get to that in the interview. Down from Wisconsin? Yeah, I mean, didn't you drive like three hours to come to this party? No. Weren't you up in Flagstaff? No, I was already home. No. How was it? Come on. What are you trying to do? Trying to make me look bad? I was there. Yeah, we smashed out of that thing. I saw a lot of different liquors that night. Start off with beer, then it turned into a nice bottle of wine later on, tequila, and then we took it over to the rooster. Great spot. Great spot. Suffice it to say, the rooster has not seen many major championship trophies in that thing.

It was beautiful. That's not a big golf crowd, you would think? Ocontrere. No. Apparently, they're all golfers in there. They love JJ. Whatever transmissible diseases that you can get from sharing a cup with somebody is in there, I got it. That thing was passed around in a good way, but, man, it was a hell of a good time.

But, yeah, the hangovers. Who took care of the tab? JJ mandated that he took care of dinner, which was substantial, and then I took care of the rooster. Okay. Yeah. So better than Wyndham, who sticks us with the whole bill. Oh, yeah.

He ain't going to chip in a dollar. Yeah, we're just trashing. But that's awesome. We still my son, and I love him. We got JJ coming on next week. He's going to have the U.S. Open trophy here, live and in the studio. So can't wait to catch up with him, see if he's recovered from just a life-changing, career-changing week.

I was asking him. I was like, hey, do you want anything in the studio? Like something to drink for that? He's like, no, dude, I'm done. I'm done for all I was. I think that's actually good news. Water. Water's good.

Some electrolytes. Got to get ready to go. Playoffs are coming up. British Open's coming up too. That's right. Chance to go back to back. All right. Let's get to our picks before we get to our special guest this week.

Head on over to Fanatics. Download the Fanatic Sportsbook app so you can follow along. We're going to try to turn this thing around. It's been a little cold right now. But you're still in the positive for the year. I am not. But hey, mama didn't raise no quitter. I'm going to keep on firing.

No, dude. You got to shoot. shoot your way out of it. Either hot or you do. Right now we're due. All right. Well, we're on to the John Deere Classic. Home of Duck City. By the way, some call it the Midwest Masters. Whatever you want to call it, but it's got a pretty good field. Max Homa, Ricky Fowler.

Ben Griffin's playing again. Take a week off, Ben. I mean, you've made $9.000. He likes collecting money. That's fair. But this is a fun week, man. See the most, like, underrated? Like, did we sleep on him the most? I did not see this coming from Ben Griffin. And now it's week after week after week.

It's not like one big one, and he catapults up. up. He plays good every time. He's the betting favorite this week at the John Deere Classic. I never would have thought that, but this guy has probably got a very good chance of being on the rider cap team with Keegan Bradley as a captain or as a player or is both. We'll have to sit back and wait and see. But I'm going to get on the board this week. Okay, I'm taking a top 20 at plus 140.

I actually think this guy's going to win the golf tournament. He loves this place. You got to make a ton of birdies. You got to roll the rock. No one rolls it better than Denny McCarthy. The time is now top 20 at plus 140, but I'm just making it well known that I do. like him to win the golf tournament. He's going to win, I'd rather only win plus 140.

What is he to win the golf tournament? I can tell you right now. I'm a fanatic sports book. Maybe fire on both as Little Hedge. I'll go ahead with mine while you're looking at that. I'm also going top 20. Got to get off the Schneide. I haven't had a winner since JJ Spawn at the U.S.

Open. I'm getting plus 175 on this man. Colt had a really good chance to win last week. Ended up finishing fourth. He had a month off after a WD at Colonial. I feel like he's coming back fresh. He looked really good off the tee and on the greens last week. He can make a ton of birdies.

It's like he's just kind of coming into his own. Michael Thorbjornson. Yeah. Stand up. One time. Young stud. Got JJ Jakovic on the bag. I think he contends.

Again. He's played well here before. What did you say? Fourth last year? Fourth last week. Yeah. At the rocket. I mean, it was right there.

He had a chance. He's the real deal, man. Smashes it. Good young player. I like that pick a lot. And by the way, Dinny McCarthy is plus $2,500 to win this week. Also, bet that.

So there you have that. A win. A win is also in the. the top 20. All right. Make sure you go download the Fanatic Sportsbook app and follow along with us.

All right, our guest this week, one of the best to ever do it. He's a pro looper. He likes to drive cars really fast and a caddied for, in my opinion, the greatest player that's ever played

the game. He had a front row ticket for 14, was it? He has 14 majors total. 13 with Tiger Woods. 13 with Tiger 1 with Adam Scott. All right.

We got Steve Williams joining us on golf subpar. All right, we are very excited to welcome on our guest this week. of the most accomplished caddies of all time. He's got 14 major championships on his resume, 13 coming during his time with Tiger Woods. And he recently released a book with Evan Priest entitled Together We Roar, shares some awesome stories that is crack if you're a golf fan out there.

The great Steve Williams joins us, Steve. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having you on the show. It's obviously a very popular show with people down here in New Zealand know a lot about your show. So, yeah, thanks for having us on. Yes, sir. We're big with the Kiwis. Yes. I love it. I haven't seen you in a while. I want to ask, like, what made you want to write this book here? Obviously, it's so interesting and exciting to read. Yeah, it was purely Evan's idea.

During COVID, obviously he's a reporter, media guy, and there wasn't a lot happening during COVID. So he had this idea of doing a podcast. It was called Chasing Majors, and it was about all my major victories, one episode per major victory and just sort of talk it in depth. And then Evan got a bit of interest from some people. publicists about, you know, perhaps expanding on that podcast into a form of a book. And it took two or three years to sort of get all the pieces of the jigsaw in place.

And that's how it came about. So, yeah, it was mainly Evan, not myself. Well, on behalf of all the golf fans across the world, we thank you for doing that because there's some cool stories in here. I think no golf fan can get enough Tiger stories. And there's some that I'd never heard before. One specifically that I thought we could start with just because it's early on is the story when you got the phone call from Tiger.

to caddy for him. This is awesome. Can you tell that story? Yeah, look, it was a bit of a laugh. I arrived in Miami for my first tournament of the year, which was at Dorell. I was getting for Ray Flore at the time. He hadn't played in any of the West Coast swing. I was not aware that Tiger and Mike Cowan had parted ways, and there's a bit of chat around the putting green on Tuesday on the driving range about that news. I didn't really give it much thought. And Tuesday night in my hotel room, This is just after arriving from New Zealand, jet lagged, Matt. The phone rang in my hotel room.

I have a guy, a very good friend of mine who's a golf pro, and he can imitate Tiger to a T, his swing, his body language, his movement, his voice, and blah, blah, blah. I just thought it was him in no uncertain terms. It was fairly late in the evening. I just told him to F off and give me a ring tomorrow. A couple minutes later, the phone rang, and it was the same question, and I gave pretty much the same reply.

Then the third time I thought, well, maybe it's not my mate, Bob. And sure enough, it wasn't, it was Tiger. So that was a very good start about, you know, sort of the, a bit about the banter that Kiwis have and Aussies have. That's sort of our way of thinking is a little bit different, I guess, to what Tiger would be used to. So we got off to a good start there. Did you have any kind of relationship with him before the phone call?

Yeah, Tiger, a couple of years as an amateur, had played with Raymond at Augusta. Raymond was well known that he was very welcoming to take guys, amateurs or pros that had not played at Augusta before and wanted to play somebody who would take the time to play a practice round and sort of show them around the course and really give them a lot of information. You know, it's a course, as you know, Colt, you can't get enough information about where to miss it, where to miss it, which holes to play aggressive on, which ones to not play on it. And all that, there's a lot of, unlike a lot of golf courses, I feel there's more local knowledge there than a lot of other courses. very welcoming. And Tiger played a couple of practice rounds with him two years when he was an amateur and he soaked up so much information. So that was my introduction to Tiger, got to meet him there. And, you know, of course, playing a practice round with him, there was no doubt in my mind.

As a caddy, we look at players and we'll say, well, this guy's got the X factor and a guy that's got the X factor, most likely go on to be a very, very successful career. And straight away, I said to myself, you know, this guy's got the X factor. So that was my introduction to Tiger, It's lovely guy to play with in a practice round. Before we get back to our interview with Steve Williams, a quick note from Golf Pride. If you care about feel, consistency, and control, start with your grips. Golf Pride's new, Align Max, has a raised ridge that fits your hands natural shape, guiding you into the same grip every time.

That means a more repeatable swing, shot after shot. And when it comes to your putter, the reverse taper grip is a game changer. The slightly larger lower hand keeps both hands quiet and the face square at impact. It's available in three shapes and even small sizes now, so there's one for every putting style. Right now, get 20% off a full set, up to 13 swing grips and one putter grip at gulfpride.com with code subpar 20, now through August 31st.

And now, back to Steve Williams. I would love to hear how you even got into caddying because I'll be honest, I don't think a lot of people, you know, as their kids grow up, they're like, hey, I really want to be a professional caddy one day. But obviously now the business has changed a ton, but what was your first experience, Caddy? Yeah, look, my father was a very good amateur player here in New Zealand, and we used to have a tournament at my golf course.

It was called Pata Pada Umu Beach, which is the only golf course up until recently there was in the top 100 in the world. And they hosted a tournament every year. It was called the Caltech Invitational, and my father played it as an amateur, and he got to meet Peter Thompson through that tournament. And one year he just said,

Peter, hey, my son, it loves to caddy. I caddy did our golf course every weekend and said my son loves to caddy. He would love to caddy for you one time when you come to New Zealand. So he arranged that. I carried for him. It was 1976.

And I decided right there and then I was 13 years of age and I decided I was actually 12 at the time in the tournament. It was a week away my 13th birthday or whatever. And I decided right there and then that's what I wanted to do. In a nutshell, as a youngster growing

up. I worked in a butcher shop. I had a paper round. I used to pick mushrooms and sell those on the side of the road. I was always looking to ways to make money along with cadding. And I used to make a pretty healthy amount of about $5 a week, which was a lot of money back then. And I caddy for this guy and he gave me $150 while. I'd never seen that much money. And straight away, I said to myself, I want to be a caddy. And the following week, I carried for Peter at a tournament in Auckland. It was called the Air New Zealand Shell Open. And he was paired with Graham Marsh. And Graham had a caddy one of the name of Nick DePaul, who you would know who that is, a guy that later went on to caddy for Severiano and Bell herself and had a very,

very successful caddy as a career as a caddy. And Nick was good enough to tell me the ins and outs, how you become a professional caddy, what it involves. And that was my start. And that's how it got underway. Well, hell of a good decision you made led to a very, very nice career. Go back to when Tiger split with fluff. I mean, at that point, I got to think he could have handpicked any caddy in the world.

And they would have crawled over a hot fire to the caddy for a time. Tiger was and he picked you. Why do you think, what do you think he saw in you that made him think I want Steve Williams? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, you know, I guess, you know, I've always had a reputation as a stand-up sort of a guy. I'm not scared to voice my opinion and not scared to, you know, back myself, if you like. And Tiger asked a few people, Mark O'Meara, his good mate, Butch Harmon is coach at the time and a couple other people. obviously each person he asked the tiger asked

they had a few different caddies but their names and my name was synonymous with all people that he asked and that's how it came about would you say like because being out there obviously there's guys that are easy to caddy for

and there's guys that are tough to caddy for obviously he's one of the best we've ever seen but as far as cadding for the guy is like is Tiger a guy that requires a lot of information or is he keep it pretty simple out there? I think one of the key things ingredients that made him

so successful is how simply kept it the whole time. You know, he wasn't one of these guys that was constantly on track, man. You know, when we used, when we did our yardage is that, we weren't using the up and down numbers that were in the yardage book. We just go, that's a little uphill, it's a little downhill. It's cold today. It's warm today. You know, he kept things very simple.

And when I look back at it, I think that was one of his major attributes that made it, you know, he played pretty quickly as well. And he made his decision and pulled the trick. and play the shot. So I think that was one of his, you know, attributes that made him successful. You know, that blew me away. He recently said that,

I believe last year when he was playing, but not calculating the up and downs, which just, that just shocked me that a guy like Tiger Woods wouldn't want to know exactly what it was playing up the hill or down the hill. Yeah, look, Colt. I mean, it's interesting that,

I mean, I had a brief stint counting for Jason Day, and nothing against Jason. I would call Jason a modern day player, and I would call Tiger an old, you know, an olden day player. And when I was kidding for Jason, you know, trying to calculate he was using the up and down. He had information about how far the ball went in 70 degree,

80 degree, 90 degree, 100 degree, weather, and all these different things became overwhelming. And, you know, it's interesting when you use that up and down. You know, sometimes, like for instance, at the sixth hole to gust, as you know, guys, it's very much downhill. And sometimes, you know, we'd never use the up and down. And sometimes if you got to the hole,

there was a considerable weight on the tee. You know, I'd look at that number and think to myself, what am I thinking and what is that number indicating? It was too great a difference, you know. So we just never used that thing. You know, Tiger was a field player. And I think that's why he was so successful playing on Lynx golf courses, golf courses that were target golf courses,

parkland golf courses, you know, your Bethpage type courses. I think he played strictly by feel. And like I said, he didn't use all those numbers that were acquired. And I think today, part of the problem is, is that the information that's available now has contributed to the slow play on tour.

Oh, boy. But that's, you know, I think there's just too much information now, whether that's a good thing or bad thing, it's an individual choice. Yeah, between the information and the technology, I feel like some of these guys, like, paralyze themselves,

strip themselves of their talent, just worrying too much about that stuff. But you mentioned a couple of the names, Steve, that you caddied for, Raymond Floyd. You also had Greg Norman, Adam Scott, just to name a few. Looking back on- Ian Baker-F, Finch, don't forget about him. IBM in the house, shout out, IBF, no question about it. What are the biggest differences in the job responsibilities, cutting for Tiger versus some of these other big-name players that you were with? I mean, really, you know, the job responsibility is exactly the same here with you, you're caring for.

you know, you've got to do what they want you to do as a caddy. And when you go to work with somebody, that's the first thing. Well, in my book, that's the first thing you do is ask them, what do they require for caddy? What is it you want? What is it you require? What is it you don't want? What you don't like?

So pretty much it's the same for every guy. Obviously, when you're catting for Tiger, the biggest difference between catting for Tiger and, say, Adam Scott, was just trying to keep the distractions to a minimal. You know, like I always looked at it. You know, Tiger, you know, obviously he was a phenomenal player and had to create a lot of interest wherever he went, but I wanted him to be on a level playing field as the other guy, so that when he was on the range, he wasn't distracted. When he was on the putting green, he wasn't distracted.

Because, you know, every tournament he went to, for instance, you know, there was always these guys that are the tournament directors that are always trying to entice players to come to their tournament. Hey, Tiger, have you looked at, you know, our tournament where does it fit in your schedule, this, that and the other, you know, we can offer you a fishing trip here. You know, keep those guys at bay. Just try to give him the same opportunity that someone, else that's not in his position when they come to the range to practice or when they go to the

putting green to practice that he gets the same opportunity to not be disturbed because he always considered the golf course and the practice lead that's my office that's my workplace and i'm here to do my job and i would help him um succeed in that and i know you talk a lot about it in the book together we roared but just his dedication his practice regimen there was a story in there after he won a major championship people are talking about you know throwing a party and he's like no he was on the range the next morning at 8 a.m. Can you just talk about like how dedicated this guy was? Yeah. I mean, look, Colt, you know, there's a lot of guys are dedicated. We know that. To be successful as a professional golfer and to get to the top of the tree, you've got to be

dedicated. But it's sort of what the way about you go your business. I always used to sort of like, I'm not laugh, but I took a lot of interest when we, it was quite often we'd be at Iowa with and there'd be Stuart Appleby, Charles, Hal, Mark Romero, and Tiger. Four of them could be on the range at one time, practicing a bit of banter, helping each other out, blah, blah, blah. And Charles would hit three balls to every ball that Tiger hit. You know, so Tyke might have at 200. Charles is at 600, but Tiger hit 200. Every shot that he hit in practice, he'd always hit five to six shots with not, the first five or six shots he'd hit would be with a 56 degree wedge and there'd be nothing, you know, he'd just have a swing.

It didn't matter where the ball went, what sort of shot it was, just to get loose and get feel. And then from that point on, every single shot he hit had a point to it, whether he was working on the swing, the ball flight, the shape of the shot. Everyone had a thought in mind. And so it was that kind of dedication that was done on the practice range that when he got onto the course, he played so many wonderful shots under extreme pressure situations because he put himself in that position in the range in his head so many times. And, you know, I'd say to him so often, it's just another range seven iron tiger. There's nothing more simple than that. And he practiced with a lot of dedication, but also a lot of thought and it was very meticulous in the way he went about it. He just didn't go to the range and hit balls.

Now, you know, you look at a lot of guys that they have a practice session out and they just go to the range and they'll hit two buckets of balls. And in their head they say, well, that's good. I've hit my two buckets balls. I'll accomplish that. You know, I can say I practice. But what did you practice? Was every shot how you wanted to be? and he had certain drills that he would do,

and he would never leave the range or the practice green chipping area until he completed that drill. And so he was very regiment in that way. Before we get back to our episode with Steve Williams, the future of America golf is now. Launched in 2023, the U.S. national development program is the United States first unified pathway designed to guide top junior players all the way to the highest level of the sport.

From competitive junior golf to amateur and aviator, eventually professional play, the USGA is helping chart that journey. The program identifies, trains, develops, funds, and supports the nation's most promising young talent, regardless of their cultural, geographic, or financial background. It's all part of the USGA's commitment to keeping American golf at the forefront of the global game. With national junior teams for boys and girls, an elite amateur team, and 17 state junior teams now in place, plus a national young professional team on the way, the impact is already being felt. And in 2025, alone, the USGA awarded over 100 grants to junior golfers in need,

helping cover the cost of coaching, travel, tournaments, and more. Talent is everywhere, and opportunities should be too. Learn more at usGA.org slash USNDP. Back to Steve Williams. Steve, when you were out there with him, and he's one of the most fierce competitors, I think we've seen in any sport ever, when Tiger was running hot under the collar.

Like, caddies tend to step in and kind of know how to handle their guy. What was the way you handled Tiger when he was running a lot? little warm. Well, the one thing I always noticed with Tiger when he was running a little warm is the adrenaline that he would get going, you know, and I could tell when he, when the adrenaline was gone, he would walk quicker, he would talk quicker. Everything became a little bit quicker. And I would, the biggest thing I did was adjust the yardages all the time.

I mean, I was constantly doing that. You know, if it was 160 and it's a nine on, I'd be telling them, you know, it's 170 or something. I'd be adjusting the yardage so often because he just got the adrenaline going and the ball started going further and further so I had to be extremely aware of that and I got a very good handle on that to the point where I can recall one round at Bay Hill

and the final round of one of his victories there I didn't give him the same, the right yardage, the correct garage on any shot for the entire round. Now you've got to be careful when you're on a par three and one guy's saying it's, you know, a 195 which I'd know would be say a six iron and I'm telling Tiger, it's only 183. So he hits the seven, you know, the seven on it, but doesn't hit it, you know,

doesn't hit it as hard as he should be hitting it. I did that so often when he got running hot and he got the adrenaline going. That takes some balls. Yeah. Did he know that? Did he know that you tweak yardage? Yeah. It took him a little while to do it.

The first time I did it, or the first big time moment was on the 17th hole of the 90, of the 2000 PGA championship when Tiger had that unbelievable battle with Bob May. We got to that 17th hole. The yardage said that it was a 56 degree wedge, and I just knew Ty could get a 60 there. So I moved the yardage back so that he hit a full 60. That pin was on the front there, and it fairly cleared the bunker, and he makes a birdie and goes on to win it in a playoff.

Now, had I been wrong, you know, had that have mucked up, and he headed it in the bunker, he wouldn't have known, but that was the first time I did it. And then I can't remember pinpoint exactly when he asked me something about it. And whatever, he said, you know, you just keep doing it. You know what you're doing. That's awesome. Well, if you look at Tiger's career and when you were on the bag with him,

like the guys that took him to the wire at major championships were lesser known guys. Or guys that weren't up to his caliber. I mean, Rocco Mediate, Bob May. You mentioned Chris DeMarco, Yie Yang actually got the best of him at Hazeltine. What do you think it was? Yeah, Rich Beam. Yeah. What do you think it was about those guys?

that were able to be somewhat more successful against Tiger compared to the big names like Phil and Vijay. Yeah, I think if you look at it, you know, the guys like Phil and Vijay, they were playing with Tiger week in and week out and they were frequently paired with him and to the point where, you know, nine times out of 10 when they were paired with Tiger,

he got the better of them in the score that was posted on that day. So when you get a guy, sort of an unheralded guy, that's not played with Tiger a lot, and he's playing with him in the final round of a major championship, everybody's thinking oh, Tiger's going to win the tournament and you know, a lot of pressure we know that, but these guys are sort of under no pressure

if you know what I mean, because they're not expected to win and they rise to the occasion but because I've never been knocked off the tree as often as some of these other guys that play with Tiger frequently and, you know, there's some great, you know, like Tiger, you know, Ernie Ells was an absolute wonderful player, fantastic player in that, but you know, he hardly ever got the better of Tiger

and I think sometimes when you play with somebody on a regular basis, whether it be golf, tennis, whatever it is, and someone keeps getting the better of you, you almost know that the guy is going to get the better of you. And I think that's probably indicative of where these guys that weren't expected to play, put Tiger to the best test. I mean, you'd have to probably say, in all the major championships that Tiger played in my mind

in the time that I was with him, that Bob May tested the Tiger better than anyone and, you know, just to not let down. And oddly enough, not oddly enough, but Tiger expected that from him because I'd never heard of Bob May and Tiger told me when this guy was a junior in Southern California, he was the man. I'm glad you brought that on.

That's one of the best battles of all time in major championship histories, but I'm glad you brought that up called like the lesser name guys because the media tried, Steve, I would say, to manufacture a rival for Tiger Woods over and over. I mean, you had Deval, Phil, VJ, Ernie, you name it, and they never panned out. but if you had to name a guy who you think Tiger viewed that way, is there anybody? David DeVille, unparalleled. He thought that David had what it took to compete week in and week out and challenge him for number one supremacy.

He was the guy, but, you know, it was very short-lived time. You know, David had that wonderful patch where he got the number one in the world catch of the Open Championship, and then, you know, he made a drastic change with his body. And hence, he lost field with his goals swing in that. And it took him a long time to get it going again. But he was the guy that he had the most respect for and the guy that he thought could challenge him. If you look back at some of these,

obviously you've seen so many great shots and we're going to get to it. But I want to just pick out two specifically. I want to go to Hazeltine on the 18th hole, fairway bunker, three iron, ball below the feet, just an unbelievable shot. And then 2,000 Canadian Open, the 6 iron over the water. Which one was better? Well, Colt, you know, you've got a great take.

on that because if you asked me the two greater shots that they were then. Oh, wow. Yeah, 100%. People talk about the chippin at Augusta, obviously, but that would come third. But those two, undoubtedly, given the circumstances, the 72nd hole at the Canadian Open, with everything on the line, the PGA Championship, I believe, was on the first round. It was either the first or the second round. So, you know, if you dropped a shot or didn't drop a shot, it wasn't going to be the end of the world at that point. But here's a shot that, you know, I mean, it's an unbelievable shot.

Yeah. I mean, if you go back there and have a look at the conditions, it's raining. And then the ball wasn't even sitting that great, you know, because there's a lot of, it had been raining a lot. And you know what it's like in a bunker when the ball gets into the bunker, and it rolls in there. And it's weird. It sort of almost rolls. And when it comes to a sock, it sort of just sits down a little bit.

What even that great a lie? I mean, it was an unbelievable shot. I was at the US Amateur at Hazeltine, actually, last year. and they took a bunch of the kids in there and had him try to reenact it, and not one of them could get it over the lip. They just kept drilling the lip, and for him to hit a three iron

with the ball that far below his feet. I mean, was that one of those shots? You were like, hey, boss, like, what the hell are you trying to do here? Oh, you know, that was one shot where, you know, I was, I guess, when you're catting for a goal like that, who has, you know, a remarkable feel and the remarkable ability to hit a lot of different shots.

But that was one shot. I just stood back, and I couldn't actually picture what he was trying to do. do here. There's only one guy that can recreate that, and that's Johnson Wagner. Yes. We've got to get him out there, get him out there, in that bunker. Steve, I know you've told this story as you've kind of been making your rounds,

but it's so cool just to hear it from you and for our listeners that maybe haven't, but 2000 U.S. Open, golf balls, the story. Can you tell it? Look, it's a long story, and I've covered it off in the book, but in a nutshell, due to the circumstances of a fog delay on Friday and an early start on Saturday, earlier than what you would normally expect a US Open to be, because back then it wasn't a 7 o'clock Eastern finish.

They played earlier, whatever it was. Saturday's restart was a continuation of Friday's round. So when I picked Tiger's tops up in the morning, because it was a continuation off the second round, I didn't put any balls or gloves or need anything. I just picked the bag up, put it on my shoulder. We didn't go to the putting green because of the early start. Tiger went to the driving range,

got in the courtesy car to go out to the in the van to go out to our allotted starting time hole and whatever got onto the T there you know put my hand in the bag to get a ball out for the first hole and there's only three balls and I thought oh that's a bit strange you should have been more than that I mean I'm you know we always start with nine and we only use three yesterday so we're three short I didn't give it much thought

first hole up the hill there on the 13th hole there hits it in the left rough there hits it onto the green with a wedge. It was wet. The grass was wet. Put a big scuff on the ball and made birdie and then walked off the green and threw the ball to a very young man,

a young adult, a junior, walking with his dad and he was so excited. I'm watching him, you know, he's showing dad. I got this tiger ball. Look, dad, it's got his name on it. There wasn't a lot of, you know, people considering the time in the morning. I almost wanted to go over and grab that ball because I thought, just in case, but, you know,

I can't be seen doing that. What's going on here? You know, like 14, 15, 16, 17, 17, no problem. Then on 18, obviously, it hits the ball and the water off the T, you know, and now we're down to one ball left, you know, if this one goes in the ocean, or possibly goes out of bounds, and the other two guys are playing with, aren't playing, you know, a Nike ball. We're in deep trouble here.

So, you know, it's the only time in my entire time of cadding that I was actually nervous. And, you know, you've heard that saying your ass is puckering. I didn't know what that means or pickering, whatever that word they used. Well, I knew what that was right there and then on that ADT. I was nervous. I can't imagine. The gist of the story is because we didn't go to the putting green in the morning, there wasn't enough time to do all the usual things.

He didn't go to the putting green. He putted on the carpet in his room and left three balls sitting on the floor in his room, which I didn't see. Man, that is wild. If we had a, if the Tiger had, you know, the second, the provisional ball, you know, either a way right out of bounds where you couldn't find it or be back there in the ocean. You know, I wouldn't be talking to you right now.

When did he find out? He knew something was up. It was ironic. And this just gives you an insight how different a guy thinks. He knew something was up. And I could sense he knew, but he never said a word. You know, we finished that round on Friday, went back out later the day and played Saturday's round, Sunday's round.

You know, won the U.S. Open by 15. So it's an unbelievable treat and an unbelievable feat. Signs a scorecard. And he comes down the stairs, and I'm sitting at the stairs outside the scoring trailer with the clubs and everything. He says, so, Stevie, tell me about what happened there on Friday on the 18th feast.

I told him, and he had a great laugh. And then the next thing that he said to me, he said, Steve, I'm going to play even better than I did this week at the Open Championship. You get your ass over there. I want you to know every blade of grass in that course before I get there. That's the kind of pressure it was.

working for Tiger, you know, I had a bunch of mates with me from New Zealand that were at that US Open at Pebble Beach. And, you know, I couldn't celebrate because now, I just couldn't celebrate in the way that you should celebrate because now, you know, he's told me, you know, he's put me under pressure, if you know what I mean? Like, he told me he was going to play even better and I want you to know every blade of grass. Well, what did he do? He went over to St. Andrews, never hit in the bunker. And in the entire 13 years I came from, that was the best tawny play. So he was right. Okay. So St. Andrews was better than Pebble, even though he won by 15. 100%. That was the best 72 whole performance in the entire time that I came for Tiger was the Open Championship at St. Andrews.

Wow. I believe that's where he had the blind shot and you told him to hit it like a TV tower and he hit it and he goes that one right there, Stevie. Yes, the steeple behind the green. You know, you're looking on the 14th hole behind the green. There's a big steeple, church steeple that stands out and that. But yeah, so it's amazing. He won that one by 15, the U.S. Open at Pibble and then went on, you know, and Tommy he's going to play better. and, you know, like I said, for a 72-hole performance he did,

because he had, you know, he made that triple boge on the second, the third hole at Pebble on the Saturday, and he had another couple of holes where he scratched out some really, you know, testing paths, if you like, but at St. Andrews, he never put himself under pressure or any, you know, stress for 72 holes. It was a remarkable 72 holes of golf. Yeah, go over there, learn every inch,

and then you didn't even hit it. He didn't hit anywhere where he could have got in trouble. phenomenal. I feel like we could talk for like four hours. I would love this. I would love to. We got to get to the E9 here, Stevie, and have a little fun with you here. I'm going to start out with another one about Tiger here. I need to know the biggest argument you ever got into Tiger with on the golf course.

It was at the Masters' champ. I can't exactly remember what year it was, but I'd been out in the course early in the morning and knew where the T placement was on the third hole. I'd moved the T right up to the very front, which I'd never seen before. Sometimes I've seen them move it up 10 to 12. put it right on the front of the team, easy to knock it on the green there. And he made a four-four start. It was automatic in my mind that he needed to hit driver there.

I couldn't talk him into it, and I did. He hit the worst shot he's ever hit over to the trees. And the right took Bogie, which basically took him out of the tournament because probably the scoring average might have been 3.5 or 6 on that hole on that day. And, yeah, you didn't say a word to me for the next five holes in going up the ninth hole. I addressed him down and gave him a speech that he'd never heard before. and that was the first and only major argument that we ever had. Wow, all right.

Pretty damn good. Yeah, because he's been known to lay, I mean, he always lays up there on the third, or at least back of the day he did. Yeah, well, in my mind, you just had to have a go because it was, you know, off the front of the tea there, it was feasible, you know, with a lot of luck that you could leave the ball in the putting service,

but it was very easy to hit the ball, you know, up onto the putting surface and over behind the green there, where it's a pretty simple up and down. So, yeah. We'll be back to Steve Williams in just a moment, but first, a message presented by Enterprise Mobility. The Road to Opportunity is often the road overlooked. That's why Enterprise Mobility offers new roads to help drive your business forward. With mobility solutions like fleet management, flexible truck rental, and an unmatched global network, they can help your business find the right solutions. Their mobility experts can find smarter ways to scale your business, so you're not just growing bigger, you're getting bigger.

The more ways we all have to move forward, the further will all go. Find your road at enterprise mobility.com. Now, back to Steve Williams. Okay, first one from me, see, I was going to ask you, greatest shot you ever saw a tiger hit outside of the chip-in on, you know, at the 05 Masters. But since you've already answered that, I'll change it up. Let's just say Tiger, Prime Tiger, he's got one golf course, one tournament.

He has to win it, his life is on the line. What golf course would you go to? Sorry, Pines. over Firestone, Bay Hill, all that? Oh, yeah, just because he, you know, he, he, he, he, obviously at Firestone had a remarkable record, but he just loved Torrey Pines. He had a bit of a fascination with that course because it was the first time that he went to watch a golf tournament was Torrey Pines.

They'd played that, um, he's a tournament. I forget what they call it. It's a kid's tournament in America. Junior World, Junior World, which was held, held there. on a number of times. He just loved that course. It was a course that he said always suited his eye. So when he said that a course suited desire,

that was an indication of how much he loved the course. Okay, I'll ask you this. Did you win more majors with Tiger or lose more teeth at the 1987 Spanish Open Driving Range? More majors, you know, lost a few teeth. That was back in the days when caddies had to catch the balls on the range. You know, they picked the ball's up and that was the range,

the oddest range, that you couldn't, you could only see the top of the guy, when you were standing at the back of the range, catching the foxing, we used to call foxing balls, foxing the drivers, you could only, because the back of the range sort of went down a little bit, you could only see

the top of your guy swinging and there's balls going everywhere and I was can again, Baker Finchian, got one straight in the mouth and got three teeth knocked out. So fortunately, 14 majors out, weighs three teeth. I mean, that is insane to me. So, I mean, obviously, I wasn't around back then when this is happening. So there's just all the caddies are out there on the range and there's just balls flying everywhere and you're trying to catch him. Oh, 100%. And when I used to work

for Greg Norman, he would give me a hundred bucks if I could catch every one. And I used to, this guy, Nick DePaul, who I was talking about earlier on, he used to use a baseball glove, which a lot of guys did. I just wrapped a towel around my hand and used a towel because sometimes in the baseball, the ball hit so hard in the glove that would come out quickly. You didn't snatch it quickly, whereas a towel softened the blow and you can catch it.

So it was bedlam on the driving range. Golly. That's wild. That's back when men were men. Yeah. Now they got robots. There's not even people driving the damn things to pick them up anymore.

All the ball, different ball types were soft, soft now. All right, Stevie, next one for me. First thought to win in your mind when you drop Tigers and Iron into the lake at the 2006 Rider Cup. Let's hope he doesn't need that club again. And it was just ironic. We're playing alternate shot.

And on the very next hole, he needs a nine-nine. That's unbelievable. And yeah, when he said he's looking for the nine-nine, I said, oh, by the way, I dropped that in the lake back there. So, you know, the story about the no golf balls at Pebble Beach and myself dropping the club into the, the lake there at the K club at the Ryder Cup. We've had so many laughs about that, yeah.

That was a funny moment. That was a good moment. That was fun. Give me Tiger's biggest pet peeve towards his caddy. Like, what's the one thing that drives him nuts? I used to leave the zippers open on the golf bag. And I've done it with every pro I've gave for it. And he didn't like that either.

So, you know, I'd have all the zippers on. He goes, Steve, I've got my mom. in there. I got my watch in there. I got my Stanford marker in there and that. Please zip the bag up. And it was just a bad habit. I always had, you know, never zipping all the pockets up on the golf bag. And he hated that.

Yeah. I had an old caddy de-staff that used to be like that. Just bag, just bag, just bag. Wide open. Tiger's stuff would be some hands, maybe wandering into that thing, I would think. If you set it down too close to the ropes. All right, Stevie, I need to know. Why did you defy doctor's instructions

not to fly or swim after your racing accident in 2005? Yeah, look, I mean, you know, when you committed to do something, you tell something you're going to be somewhere, I'm extremely hard-headed. And, you know, I didn't feel like it was that big. I had some broken ribs and so forth and that. But it was quite an amazing thing because I was told you can't fly and you can't swim. So the accident was on Saturday night.

And Monday, New Zealand time Sunday, I flew to Honolulu and then over there to Capulua. and the first thing, okay, so I succeed on the flight and the first thing I'd do when I got there, I went for a swim and to be fair, that the swim relieved the pressure from the broken rib. He's doctors. Yeah, but you're like, you know, like when you commit to caddy for somebody and, you know, particularly it's Tiger, I didn't, you know,

in the entire time I caved in Tiger, I only missed one tournament. It was a presence cup when my son was born and one other time. So only two times. So, you know, I couldn't tell Tygo. I had an accident racing. Hey, Steve, you've got to dangerous activity. Maybe you shouldn't be racing for me. Maybe you thought that maybe you didn't.

But, yeah. These doctors are full of shit anyway, Steve. I got two more for you real quick. Okay, obviously there's a lot of great catty nicknames out there. I need to know your favorite caddy nickname. And did you have one? The best nickname, there was a guy called Silly Billy. And this guy, this was back in the late 70s and 80s when I was catting on the European tour.

Now, Silly Billy never had a yardage book, right? Or sorry, he had, he carried a notebook, had nothing in it. He just went around and made everything up. And he caddy for a guy called Jose Rivera, who was a Spanish guy, and he was a very good player, made the Ryder Cup team one year. And it was just so funny. I'll never forget. I was paired with him one day, and we're playing at Cron Susie,

up in a very high altitude at the European Masters. And Jose E.M.A.L. is a green in one thing. And he grabbed that yard book off, silly Billy, and had a look at it. The page is blank. He just, he just, he just made, he was unbelievable this guy. He just, look at the markers on the fairway or the sprinkler heads. But to be fair, most of the courses had, if they didn't have sprinklers, they weren't marked in those days, but all the courses had, you know, the 150 to 200, whatever,

markers to the middle of green. He just guessed everything. He was unbelievable. And my nickname was the crazed Kiwi. I don't know where that came from, to be honest. What about the sheep shagger? What's that? What about the sheep shagger?

Oh, well, that wasn't a nickname, but that, you know, Tiger used to call me that. And I said, you know, don't knock until you've tried it. I like that. Amen. Amen. All right. Last one from me, Steve. We need to know, why did you carry your own cereal bowl and spoon in your luggage

to every tournament when you're accounting for Adam Scott. Yeah, let's just say, I could eat probably more cereal for breakfast than the average person, so I needed to have a bowl instead of, I didn't want to have to fill it up twice. I just had this big bowl. You traveled with your own bowl. That's some love for cereal. I love that. Yeah, I had a blue cereal, well, I still got it to this day, and I traveled with it,

and that was my morning breakfast. And if it just had the right amount that didn't need less, didn't anymore. that was my requirement for breaks every day. So I just had my own bowls. I knew that was, you know, it was like taking medicine. You had to have this many pills and whatever. Well, I had to have this much cereal. And spoon.

That's nice. What was your go-to cereal? I used to even look, you wouldn't believe this cult, I used to bring my own cereal with me as well. Wow. Yeah, it was neutral grain. It's an Australian cereal, actually. And I used to buy some granite.

I used to mix the nutra grain with a granola that I used to get. from the supermarket. So, yeah, I mean, these days you can't take food with you, but that's only happened since 9-11 where they're really strict on taking food in your luggage. But, yeah, I used to take boxes of neutra. How many weeks away I was going to be, so, yeah. I love it.

All right, last one. Has one of your players ever played a different driver shaft in a round, and he didn't know he was playing a different driver's shaft? I think you know where that question is going, is that at the PLM Open, it was called in Sweden, where I was a guest of Fannie Soonerson, because it's where Fannie lived, and that's where she started her cadding journey.

We were mucking around on the driving range, and I was hitting Ian Baker-Finches Clubs, and I snapped the shaft on the driving range, being a little bit stupid. So I had to get the local pro to put the whatever shaft he had available, which was not the shaft that him was using. Yeah, so I never got fired over that, but that was another good story. Coldon, I'm amazed that you knew that story.

Oh, I, you know, we do some research over here. I heard you didn't tell him, though, and he didn't know. And the next day, he's like, man, this kind of feels different. Yeah, during the round, I didn't tell him. And then we went back to London, and he would practice sort of a place called Sunningdale. And he was playing something on the Monday, maybe a charity or some kind of. kind of outing and he just said, you know, this driver's just not feeling like it is. And then I had to open up and said, well, this is actually what happened after play on

Saturday. A bunch of us caddies went to the driving range when everyone was gone and started practicing. And what actually happened is we were trying to, we were doing the, like a thing that Padra Carrington used to do and, you know, T's three or four balls up in row and just go, you know, one after another after another after another. And I wasn't very successful in doing that. and I hit the ground so far behind the ball that the shaft broke. Oh my gosh, that's a problem. I love that you didn't tell them until he got to London. Yeah, yeah.

So, hey, look, along the way, you know, cadding now has become, you know, a very lucrative profession and a very sought-after profession, and it's a lot more serious than it ever used to be. But, Colt, when we used to start, when I started cadding back in the 70s and 80s, it was a hoot to the point where we even had a caddy 15 rugby team when we were on the European tour

and three or four times a year we'd play a match against the social team somewhere along the line and it's the only time that I've ever had to put the clubs on a trundler I was carrying at the Open Championship for Ray Floyd

and one of the practice rounds I had to pull the bag on a trundler because we played a social match on the Tuesday night against the University 15 and this guy pounded me so hard I couldn't walk the next day So, you know, look, we used to do things like that.

We used to train and have a, you know, so the whole scenario of caddy has changed and rightfully everything evolved than that. But back in the early days and that, it was a fun job, a lot of memories. And then it got, you know, more serious as it's gone on to the point now. It's, you know, it's a sought-after profession and rightfully so. Absolutely. We'll see Ted Scott get out there and play some rugby. You know what I mean?

Well, Stevie, you're one of the best to ever do it, man. Thank you so much to you and Evan Priest for writing this awesome book. together we roared. It was a phenomenal read, and we really appreciate you joining us here on subpar. Yeah, no, a big shout out to Evan. It was his idea, and he's done a wonderful job writing, and we wanted to give basically the reader a backstage pass,

if you like, to what it was like to CFA Tiger and some of the things like, you know, what is it like flying on a private jet and how the things happen when you want, you know, and just give a person a backstage pass to, you know, what was arguably one of the best runs in golf, and Evan's been very successful in doing that. So we're very happy how it turned down.

Yeah, thanks for having some of the show. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you for writing it. All right, that was Steve Williams, joining us on Galtzapar. You seriously need to go check out the book. Together we roared with Evan Priest's awesome read. Great stories even more than what he told us there on the episode.

But I've heard of caddies like fidging, budging the numbers here just every once in a while. But it sounds like he did it quite a bit. That shocked me that. By the way, that takes some balls to go out there and do that. If you give him a shorter number and he plugs it in the top lip of a bunker and then he goes back and looks at it. I was always like, Tiger strikes me as a type of guy that would like watch reruns or have, you know, of some of his tournaments. And if he sees it on the screen, he's like, oh, 110, Tiger here on number seven. And he'd be like, Stevie told me that was 104, you know?

I don't know how he never caught on it. Clearly it worked because they had the greatest run of any golfer really ever. I think Stevie was a part of the greatest golf ever played. You can argue the tiger and the jack stuff. but I think the best golf ever played by any human was Tiger Woods peak. You know, you could look at the 2000 U.S. Open is probably my opinion, although the TV has, you know, thinks it was at the Open Championship. So there's some cool stories in that thing.

And it's cool that they kind of, you know, reconciled after the split and that he's able to share all these stories, you know. We got a lot of good, like, Tiger stories lately between the two books. Yeah, I was shocked by him saying that the best golf he saw Tiger play was the Open Championship where, I mean, you win 1 by 15, 1 by 8. They're both freaking great. But that's pretty awesome to hear him say. He's like he just didn't miss a shot, basically, the entire week went out there,

told Steve he was going to play better at the British Open, and he went out there and did it. Just awesome. Love sitting down with Ian Baker Finch. That's good. Stink feels off. I broke it. I just put one in here.

I don't know what it is, boss. I don't know. I don't have it. It's all right. We'll go and we'll figure it out. But thanks to Steve for sitting down with us and make sure you go check out that book. And also, if you're looking to level up your golf gear, custom is the way to go. I just grabbed a few birdie juice teas, super easy process, and they turned out great.

You can do the same. Pick your favorite logo and customize polos, hats, hoodies, and more, all from the top golf brands. Make it personal and make it quick. Head to shop.golf.com and gear up with something you'll actually wear. I got some coming for your 40th. You do. I don't want to tell you what it is, but it may or may not involve birds. You told me you had some coming from about 39th and still waiting.

Yeah, you don't get guys birds. birthday presents. It's weird. Okay. 40th, maybe. Anything else? Do you buy your friend's birthday presents? Yeah. I don't even know my friend's birthdays.

That's nice. Yeah. I mean, I barely know my wife's. And other news, by the way, the latest episode of some stuff we've been filming with our friends over at Zone came out from Las Vegas. From the 8 a.m. Invitational, from the beautiful, in Las Vegas. That's coming out.

We had a great little par three hole set up with everybody came up, hit some shots, did a little walk-and-talk. shots. Took potentially some people dragging some ass too at that thing. But yeah, cool video. Check that out. It's up on the socials right now. All right.

And get ready because next week, we're going to have the U.S. Open champ in the studio with the trophy. JJ Spahn will join us. That's going to do it for us. We'll talk to you on next week's subpar.