Steve Williams and Tiger Woods made almost the perfect player-caddie partnership, so much so that the New Zealander even took matters into his own hands at times when telling his boss the wrong yardages.
Part of being a great caddie is judging the mood and stress levels of a player, and knowing what to say and when to say it.
Williams took it one step further with the 15-time Major champion, as he got to know when he was getting hot under the collar and when the adrenaline was pumping.
To combat that, he told GOLF’s “Subpar” podcast, that he’d often tell Tiger the wrong yardage as the adrenaline resulted in him hitting the ball further.
“One thing I always noticed about Tiger when he was running a bit warm was the adrenaline he would get going,” Williams told the Subpar podcast.
“When the adrenaline was going he would walk quicker, he would talk quicker, everything became a little bit quicker.
“The biggest thing I did was adjust the yardages all the time. I was constantly doing that. If it was 160 and it’s a 9-iron I’d be telling him it’s 170 or something.
“I’d be adjusting the yardages so often because he just got the adrenaline going and the ball would just be going further and further.”
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And Williams even admitted that in one victorious round at Bay Hill he never gave Tiger the right distance once all day – which worked out just fine.
“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, the final round of one of his victories there, I didn’t give him the correct yardage on any shot the entire round.
“Now, you’ve got the be careful on a par-3 and one guy is saying it’s 195 which I’d know is a 6-iron and I’m telling Tiger it’s only 183 so he hits the 7-iron but doesn’t hit it as hard as he should’ve!
“I did that so often when he got running hot and got the adrenaline going.”
Williams says of Woods that “it took him a little while” to figure out what his caddie was up to, but his response was brilliant.
“I can’t pinpoint exactly when he asked me something about it or whatever, but he just said ‘you know what you’re doing, just keep doing what you’re doing’.”
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