It was one of the most dominant partnerships golf has ever seen: 13 majors, several wins, countless fist pumps, and a dynamic that was as fiery as it was formidable. One man walked every single mile alongside Tiger Woods during his meteoric rise from 1999 to 2011. He carried the bag, the pressure, and, occasionally, the blame too, and for over a decade, Woods relied on this caddie not just for yardages but for battlefield-level intensity. He was also the shoulder Woods cried on during the 2006 Open Championship, after the golfer won for the first time since the death of his father, Earl.

It was Steve Williams. But their connection may have started on the wrong note. It was 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 2, 1999, when Williams was in a Miami Beach hotel, Florida, trying to stay awake until 9 in order to deal with his jet lag. The last thing he wanted to do was talk, but that’s when his hotel room phone rang. Annoyed by the high-pitched buzz, the caddie picked it. “Steve … Hey, it’s Tiger Woods!” the voice introduced. “Bob, f—— off, mate. I’m going to bed,” Williams responded, thinking it was his friend Bob Garza’s prank call. It was an outstanding Woods impression, he thought. Within a minute, Woods called him once again, only for Williams to disconnect the call and then, a third time. “Steve, it’s Tiger! Please don’t hang up!” Woods pleaded. “I’ve split with my caddie. I’d love to talk to you about possibly working for me.”

Realizing his error, the caddie apologized quickly. That’s how their first interaction went. But a late phone call from Woods isn’t the only thing that annoyed Williams; there was more to come. So now, in a candid episode of The Yardage Book Podcast, legendary New Zealand caddie Steve Williams revisited the moment he met Woods, and the one small thing that instantly irritated him. “I went up to Tiger’s place on a Monday and went to talk to him about caddying for him. I knocked at the door at his house and he came to the door and straight… It struck me a bit odd, he straight away called me Stevie.

“And I hated that. I don’t know why he said that, and I didn’t say anything to him, but anyway, he said, ‘Just come in, sit down. I’ll be right there with you in a minute.’ And he was playing a video game, a war video game, and the intensity of which he was playing this game, blew me away. And I am sitting there, thinking, ‘If this guy is that intense playing a video game, what’s he going to be like on the golf course?’ It was unbelievable. I’ve never seen anybody, let alone someone an adult, playing a video game with so much intensity.”
Well, post his gaming session, the duo chatted, and that’s when Williams realized that Woods didn’t want to just win tournaments, but wanted to be the best. In his garage, Woods had a detailed side-by-side comparison of Jack Nicklaus’s career milestones and his own. “That was his ultimate goal,” Williams noted. “So, you know, I knew that was going to be a tall ask.” Williams didn’t immediately accept the offer, though.

Tiger Woods and Steve Williams: From loyalty to fallout

For a duo that racked up 13 majors together, Tiger Woods and Steve Williams couldn’t have ended on a colder note. By 2011, Woods was not doing good. Injuries, swing changes, and a global scandal had derailed his career. In the midst of this turmoil, Williams asked permission to temporarily caddie for Adam Scott, as Woods had no timetable for return. Woods agreed—sort of. Williams did caddie for Scott, but shortly after, Woods fired him via phone.
The betrayal ran deep. Williams wasn’t just Woods’s caddie; he’d been his best man. “When [Woods] fired me, I thought he was firing me as a golf caddie and not as a friend,” Williams later told the New Zealand Herald years ago. Their personal and professional split left Williams blindsided and bitter. Later that year (2011), Williams sparked controversy with a racially charged remark about Woods at an awards dinner, something he quickly apologized for. Woods, for his part, accepted the apology but didn’t reach out personally for years.
It wasn’t until 2023, over a decade later, that the two reconnected privately. Williams revealed in an interview this year that they’ve since repaired their relationship. There’s no talk of reconciliation on the course, but off it, there’s peace. Time, as it turns out, does heal.