Steve Williams is one half of one of the most successful golfing partnerships in the sport’s history.
He was the caddy for Tiger Woods, the two spending twelve years working together.
Williams joined Jason Pine for a chat about his recently released book ‘Together We Roared’, which covers the partnership, and gives an insight into what it takes to win a Masters.
“The more opportunities you have to play there, the better off you're gonna be.”
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talks B.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
But speaking of Kiwez, here is another one the greatest
golf caddy in history, Kiewe. Steve Williams has a third
book out. It's called Together We Roared, documenting his twelve
years on the Bag of tiger Woods, during which time
they won thirteen majors. Together. Steve Williams is with us.
(00:34):
Congratulations on the book. Steve. It's a terrific read, with
some really superb in sight and with the Masters on
at the moment, I really wanted to get some augusta
insight from you today. So, first of all, among the
world's elite golfers, how coveted is the Masters? How coveted
is winning that green jacket?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Look, I mean the four major championships is the one
that all the professional golfers.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
You know, want to win.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Those are the talents that have placed the most importance
in that. But you know, the Masters is unique. Obviously,
it's at the same venue every year, and and it's
one course you play every year if you if you're
lucky enough to be exempt into the Talents, so you
can gain more and more familiarity with the course and
get more comfortable playing the course. So each player used
all the different major championships as far as important. You
(01:22):
know that they are all major champions I want ones.
You want to win some, you know, some like the
Open Championship, more some like the Masses.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
And so forth.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
But yeah, Augusta is unique, and everyone wants to win
a tournament at a Gusta at some point.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
What are the keys to playing Augusta?
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Well, yeah, well obviously you've got to be a very
very very good quick green pudder. The greens are very
very quick with a lot of undulation, a lot of
slope there, so you've got to be a very good
green pudder of a green reader there. You face you know,
over the period of the week there, because the greens
are so quick there, it's very hard to you know,
(02:01):
all the puts from you know, the long distance puts
are hard to lag to the close lag very very
close to the whole. So you know, you face a
lot of four to six foot is there with a
lot of brave and you've got to be very competent
at that range. Just the way they've lengthen the course
over the over the you know, over the period of time,
and that realistically, you've got to be a long ball hitter.
(02:23):
You know, a short hitter is going to find it very,
very difficult to compete there. There are a number four
part number of part fours over five hundred yards here now,
so I mean it makes them possible if.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
You're a short hitter to do well there. So, but
you know you've got to you've got to have the.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Biggest component of playing well there is to have a
great understanding of where you can't miss the ball and
where you can miss the ball. So a lot of
courses you can get away with a few shots what
we call low siding yourself, missing on the on the
short siding yourself, but you just can't.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Do that there.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
So it really examines your whole game with gusta. You know,
you've got to be able to hit some right to
left shots. You've got to be able to hit some
left or right shots. You've got to have a lot
of high shots coming into these greens. And ultimately, I
believe it's the greatest test between a player and a
caddy because there's no course to my knowledge, that puts
such an emphasis on club selection. So it's well documented
(03:18):
that there's more caddies get fired after the week it
Augusted than any other tournament because it puts a extreme
amount of pressure on a player in a caddy there
because there's so many holes there. You come up short,
you can't long, you can't get up and down. You
can make a high score, and you know you come
to those part fives that you know, aim and corner.
(03:39):
You know you look at aim and corner. Twelfth hole,
you go over the green hard to make four short,
you're in the water thirteen, you know it. You come
up short, you're in raised creek fifteen obviously with the
water short of the green, and you can't go along
club selection there. I think of all the tournaments that
you play, is the most important, and it puts put
a lot of stress on the player and a caddy there,
(04:00):
So caddy plays a big role there.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well, I mean, one thing that's obvious from this book
and everything I've read, and who about you as your
meticulous planning regardless, So did Augusta need even more than that?
Did it need extra extra care and attention from you
given what you've just outlined.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah, But one thing, like I said, you're fortunate Jason.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
You know, I I k there for thirty straight years,
so you know, you keep all your notes and every
time you go there you're learning something different, so that
you know, you look at for a number of years here,
the same guys are on the leaderboard all the time.
Fred Couples, Ernie Els, Tiger Woods, you know, these guys,
Phil Micholson, the same guys get on that leaderboard because
(04:42):
they get so comfortable with the course that they know
where to hit it, they know where not to hit it.
They've had they faced so many of the parts before,
so they get so familiar with the course. So the
more times, the more opportunities you have to play there.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
The better off you're going to be.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
And it's one of the one of them.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
If you look at how many players have won that
the first time they have played there, I think there's
only two or three of them, one on their first
visit to Augusta.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
So a lot of.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Knowledge there that you can accumulate, and that knowledge is very,
very helpful.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
It's the twenty year anniversary this year of Tiger Woods.
When with you there in two thousand and five, and
of course we land on that iconic Chippin on sixteen,
which keeps on coming up on social media feeds even
more and more this time of the year. I just
want to take you back to that maybe one of
the greatest holes ever seen in golf. The t shot,
(05:33):
though didn't quite go the way it was planned, ended
up in a place of the course that I've heard
you say you'd never been to.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Look, it's interesting, you know, it's the sixteenth time and
a Gasta at Sunday. The pin placement's always in the
same place. It's on the left hand side there, close
to the bunker. So obviously you've got to hit the
shot forty feet right of the hole and just let
it come down the hill. So when Tiger hits the shot,
immediately I'm thinking, wow, that's left, and then you're thinking
it's in the bunker. And then you think, wow, no,
(06:01):
that's not in the bunk, it's in the water. And
then I'm thinking, no, actually that's over the water. I
don't know what's over there. So as we're walking up,
you know, I'm walking quite quickly and Tigers behind me,
and he keeps yelling me, you know, asking me.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Where is it?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Steve, It was right, where is it? And I managed
to get Ian Baker Fince's attention. He was up on
the camera tower behind the fifteenth Grand and I just
managed to get his attention and said, is that okay
and just put his thumbs up.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So I didn't know where it was. I've never been
over there, you know.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
It's just I'd not seen a player play from over
there before because obviously, when the pin is down there
where it is on Sunday, you're aiming, you know, you're
aimed to the right, and if there's any tendency, generally
the players will hit it too far right. But yeah,
he goes up there, surveys the shot and so forth,
and what he's trying to do is not get the
(06:48):
ball go too far up the hill so that it
doesn't gather too much free when it comes back down.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
He said.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
He went up there after some you know, he quite
spent quite a bit of time looking at that shot,
and he picked out a ballmark.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
On the greend.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
He said, Steve, do you think if I landed on
that ballmark, I won't go up the hill too far?
And amazingly, which was just an incredible part of the shot,
as he actually landed on that ballmark. Now I could
give him a thousand balls, and he wouldn't do that again. So, yeah,
it's an iconic gold shop. And yeah it's twenty year anniversary,
(07:21):
and you know we cover a bit of that in
the book and that so it was a very special
moment in the book.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Not only that's an iconic Tiger moment. In the book,
we look at quite a few iconic moments.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, there are plenty lots just on Augusta though, Greg Norman,
you're on his bag of course in the eighties, his
collapse at Augusta in nineteen ninety six, you went on
his bag at that time. As I say, but what
did you see from him that day?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Yeah, look, I mean it was you know, as a
great friend of Greg's, it was a tragedy to watch.
I watched the last I can't remember how many holes
I was catting for Ray Floyd in the same time.
I went back to the house I was staying at
and was watching it on TV as it's unfolded. But
ultimately he changed his way that he played. Greg plays
(08:13):
incredibly aggressive, and on Sunday, instead of playing aggressive, he
went to conservative and just trying to protect his lead.
And as it was completely against his nature. He wanted
that talent so badly. That was you know, some players
want to win the Open Championship, some want to win
the US Open, someone to win the masses. He wanted
(08:34):
to be That was the time that he wanted to
win the most, and it meant the most of him,
and he let it slip through his hands, you know,
until three times he had the Larry Mice chipping and
he had the you know, the shot up the eighteenth there,
he fled it way up to the right there. But yeah,
so I actually ended up going back to Florida with
Greg that night, and I spent that night on the
(08:57):
beach with Greg, and we went over that whole round
while we're sitting on the beach and having some beers
and some tears and a lot of tears. And yeah,
for some unknown reason, he got out of his comfort zone,
which he doesn't normally do. He's a very very confident
player and very very confident and in vidilining, and he
got outside his comfort zone and instead of playing aggressive,
(09:21):
he played conservative on Sunday. So what he had done
through rounds one, two, three, he changed on Sunday, and he,
you know, he for some unknown reason he never sort
of put his hand on why he did that. It
should have just been a walk in the park in
a formality. As well as his player.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Adam Scott. You're on his bag when he won the
Masters twenty thirteen. How different a thrill was that for you?
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, look, I mean to be on the bag of
the first Australian to win win at Agasa and the
only one since. Incredibly, Like if you think about the
amount of great players in Australia has produced, you know,
go back to the one night to Kalnabe or Peter Thompson,
Bruce Devlyn, David Graham, all these great players, you know,
to the modern day Jason Day, Adam and Cameron Smith.
(10:06):
The whole post of great players Australias had over the
years to think that only one guy's put that green
jacket on, and you know it was it was an
incredible moment. Ironically, Greg played a part in that. You know,
Adam idolized Greg as a junior growing up. And you
know I met Adam a couple of times when he's
just a little teenager when I was scating with Greg,
(10:27):
and he idolized Greg is a very good amateur player
and idolized Greg.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
On that playoff hole.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
You know, when Adam asked me to read the put there,
and he read the put one way and I said,
that's not even closest. You know, he read a cup
out and I said, that's not even close. It's like
two and a half cups out. I had a note
in my book, my yardage book, and it was from
from believers from nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I had a note that had the pin placement there
and it had an arrow that said, if you're putting
from this direction, it breaks.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
More than it looks.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
And that came from when I was scating with Greg
and when You're not that part and Greg read my
lips because I said when Tiger, When Adam asked me,
I said, that's not even close. This is how far
it was. And Greg read my lips. And Greg was
actually the first person I spoke to, not he wasn't
the first person that called me. But when I got
(11:22):
in the car and I was driving back to the
house where I was staying, the phone rang and it
was Greg and he read my lips and I said, well,
you're not going to believe this. Greg, I had documented
in my yardage book when you had that part and that,
and so he felt pretty special that he had some
tie to that victory. So it was an absolute incredible moment,
(11:43):
you know, like on the eighteenth green, Adam, when you know,
when he hold that put thinking he had won the torny,
you know, come and he was come on, come on,
and he was going berserk, and it's like, hold on
a minute, Tiger, sorry, hold on to that, It's not over.
I had to quickly bring him back to the moment
so that you know, Cabrera still got a hold of go.
He might burdie and he might tie, and that's exactly
(12:04):
what happened. So he you know, you've got to quickly
he had to quickly come back to earth there for
a minute and get back out there for the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So, you know, an incredible moment.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Just for I ask you a couple more questions about this.
One final question about Augusta. The boiler suits they make
you wear as caddies. Do you like those?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Look? Jason? I think that's archaic, you know.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
I just like if I said to you, you know,
you're going to walk ten K's today on one of
the hilliest golf was ever and it might be eighty
five degrees in human Here's what I want you to wear.
You'd go you kidding me, aren't you? I think that's archaic.
I honestly do. I see why they do it. I understand,
but I think in today, in today's world, I think
(12:49):
that should be something.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That's not required by the caddies.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I understand they could wear the green hats and so forth,
but like even if they got a Master's T shirt.
Everybody had a Master's T shirt and they were all,
you know, even if they provided the same color shorts
and a T shirt with a player's name and the
logo ovals no.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
All right. The process of this book, the genesis of it,
I know, came from a podcast series you did during
COVID when you sort of went through major by major
and then there was the you know, the opportunity to
make it into into a book. How did you find
the process of writing this? Was it an enjoyable process
going back over, you know, in quite a lot of detail,
the time that you had together with Tiger.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Yeah, it was it was like a memory, a road
down memory lane, Jason, to get out all my notes,
all my book, all my statistics, and spend some time.
We were very fortunate that the publisher allowed us a
couple of extra months and what would normally be given
or granted to write a book, so they gave us
(13:54):
a bit of extra time. I found it absolutely enthralling
to go to our memory lane and pull out all
the stuff that I had and all the note I
kept an amazing amount of notes, not just on statistics,
but on moods and feelings and observations I'd made, and
to put all those out and all those great moments
and so forth, and then you know, do some actual
(14:15):
study on it. So Evan and I were trying to
give the viewer, the reader, sort of a backstage pass
to arguably one of the greatest stretches of golf ever
played by the greatest players that have played the game.
Give them a sort of backstage pass to what actually
goes on. You know, what is it like to travel
in a private jet, What is it, What are the
celebrations like after these majors, what are the practice sessions
(14:37):
later and so forth? Give the reader a backstage pass
to something. And you know, we're really pleased the way
it turned out, and we were pretty confident that the reader,
you know, when they read a lot of these iconic
moments and what they all meant, how they came about,
what went into it.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
We think the reader will love the story.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, I found myself. I paired the book with YouTube.
Basically every time something was mentioned in here, I'd go
and look at it so I could see see it
playing out. Do you reckon? You could tell on the
morning of a round whether Tiger was going to have
a good round or not by his mood.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Look, as I alluded to, I kept so many notes
and so many things, and you know, I tried to
visualize myself standing in Tiger's shoes every day. So when
he came to the golf course every day, and quite
often i'd be driving him, i'd pick him up, or
I might be staying at the same hotel, or we
could be sharing a house together. But I would observe
how he was walking, what his mannerisms were like, what
(15:34):
the eye contact was like. And then you know, the
very first two, three, four swings of the day on
the range, I would intensely watch those to see whether
there was any kind of hesitancy, any you know, was there,
some joy, was there, some you know smiles that Okay,
I just feeling good today or you know, I'd watch
those and I'd watch the practice session, and a lot
(15:57):
of times the practice session would dictate how you would
start the day. Would we start off conservatively or aggressively
based on the fact that how the practice session went. So,
you know, I and at the end of the day,
I'd go away and I'd write all these things down, Okay,
this is what happened today, and this was eventuated at
the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So yes, by the end of it. Not by the
end of the time, but.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
After probably eighteen months to two years of canning for Tiger,
and I'd accumulated enough notes, had enough round with him
in all the different situations that could unfold, and so
for that that, you know, I'd have a very very
strong indication of what was going to unfold before it unfolded.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
If you, like I've heard you describe Caddying as being
very much like an en course psychologist, how did Tiger
compare to your other O no wrong compatience, but how
did he compare to others you cadded for in that regard?
Speaker 4 (16:47):
We look, I mean, there's no question he's the most
intense player you've ever come across the guy that's more focused,
more dedicated, and you know, he plays to win. Some
guys at the end of a week, a good week
for Tiger is a win and nothing else counts. Some
guys are happy to have a top ten, top twenty,
or some guys just happy to make the cut, make
a check. But his only you know, signal of a
(17:11):
good week is a victory, and that brings a lot
of pressure when you're getting for a guy like that.
But yeah, look, that's just the way it was with Sayer.
He was incredibly intense and that's just, you know, that's
the nature of it.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
So I mean, like I say, the book's terrific. I
know people are going to love reading it. Just to
final question on your golf watching habits these days, I
do you don't watch a lot? Are you going to
watch the Masters?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
You look, I don't really know why, but I've never
really watched much golf.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I used to when I was chatting.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
I'd like to watch the Open Championship because the BBC
has that going all day. So let's say you were
off in the afternoon, you could watch all eighteen holes
in the morning. You see where the wind is, what
the players tendencies were on those holes and so forth.
But look, yeah, I just don't watch golf. I find it,
to be honest, I find it quite boring to watch golf. Yeah,
(18:06):
I guess when you're involved in something in that. But
you know, I did watch in twenty nineteen, you know,
when Tiger won the Masters Championship. I did tune into that.
But no, I won't buyd myself glued to the TV.
I just I don't watch golf period. I mean, I
love watching my rugby and my mother sport.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
As we all do. Hey, Steve again, congrats on the book. Together.
We roared alongside Tiger for his epic twelve year thirteen
Majors Run. Hope you sell heaps. Thanks for having a
chat to us.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, have a good weekend.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Faine, listen live
to News Talk sed B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talks B.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
But speaking of Kiwez, here is another one the greatest
golf caddy in history, Kiewe. Steve Williams has a third
book out. It's called Together We Roared, documenting his twelve
years on the Bag of tiger Woods, during which time
they won thirteen majors. Together. Steve Williams is with us.
(00:34):
Congratulations on the book. Steve. It's a terrific read, with
some really superb in sight and with the Masters on
at the moment, I really wanted to get some augusta
insight from you today. So, first of all, among the
world's elite golfers, how coveted is the Masters? How coveted
is winning that green jacket?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Look, I mean the four major championships is the one
that all the professional golfers.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
You know, want to win.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Those are the talents that have placed the most importance
in that. But you know, the Masters is unique. Obviously,
it's at the same venue every year, and and it's
one course you play every year if you if you're
lucky enough to be exempt into the Talents, so you
can gain more and more familiarity with the course and
get more comfortable playing the course. So each player used
all the different major championships as far as important. You
(01:22):
know that they are all major champions I want ones.
You want to win some, you know, some like the
Open Championship, more some like the Masses.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
And so forth.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
But yeah, Augusta is unique, and everyone wants to win
a tournament at a Gusta at some point.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
What are the keys to playing Augusta?
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Well, yeah, well obviously you've got to be a very
very very good quick green pudder. The greens are very
very quick with a lot of undulation, a lot of
slope there, so you've got to be a very good
green pudder of a green reader there. You face you know,
over the period of the week there, because the greens
are so quick there, it's very hard to you know,
(02:01):
all the puts from you know, the long distance puts
are hard to lag to the close lag very very
close to the whole. So you know, you face a
lot of four to six foot is there with a
lot of brave and you've got to be very competent
at that range. Just the way they've lengthen the course
over the over the you know, over the period of time,
and that realistically, you've got to be a long ball hitter.
(02:23):
You know, a short hitter is going to find it very,
very difficult to compete there. There are a number four
part number of part fours over five hundred yards here now,
so I mean it makes them possible if.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
You're a short hitter to do well there. So, but
you know you've got to you've got to have the.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Biggest component of playing well there is to have a
great understanding of where you can't miss the ball and
where you can miss the ball. So a lot of
courses you can get away with a few shots what
we call low siding yourself, missing on the on the
short siding yourself, but you just can't.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Do that there.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
So it really examines your whole game with gusta. You know,
you've got to be able to hit some right to
left shots. You've got to be able to hit some
left or right shots. You've got to have a lot
of high shots coming into these greens. And ultimately, I
believe it's the greatest test between a player and a
caddy because there's no course to my knowledge, that puts
such an emphasis on club selection. So it's well documented
(03:18):
that there's more caddies get fired after the week it
Augusted than any other tournament because it puts a extreme
amount of pressure on a player in a caddy there
because there's so many holes there. You come up short,
you can't long, you can't get up and down. You
can make a high score, and you know you come
to those part fives that you know, aim and corner.
(03:39):
You know you look at aim and corner. Twelfth hole,
you go over the green hard to make four short,
you're in the water thirteen, you know it. You come
up short, you're in raised creek fifteen obviously with the
water short of the green, and you can't go along
club selection there. I think of all the tournaments that
you play, is the most important, and it puts put
a lot of stress on the player and a caddy there,
(04:00):
So caddy plays a big role there.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well, I mean, one thing that's obvious from this book
and everything I've read, and who about you as your
meticulous planning regardless, So did Augusta need even more than that?
Did it need extra extra care and attention from you
given what you've just outlined.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah, But one thing, like I said, you're fortunate Jason.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
You know, I I k there for thirty straight years,
so you know, you keep all your notes and every
time you go there you're learning something different, so that
you know, you look at for a number of years here,
the same guys are on the leaderboard all the time.
Fred Couples, Ernie Els, Tiger Woods, you know, these guys,
Phil Micholson, the same guys get on that leaderboard because
(04:42):
they get so comfortable with the course that they know
where to hit it, they know where not to hit it.
They've had they faced so many of the parts before,
so they get so familiar with the course. So the
more times, the more opportunities you have to play there.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
The better off you're going to be.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
And it's one of the one of them.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
If you look at how many players have won that
the first time they have played there, I think there's
only two or three of them, one on their first
visit to Augusta.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
So a lot of.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Knowledge there that you can accumulate, and that knowledge is very,
very helpful.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
It's the twenty year anniversary this year of Tiger Woods.
When with you there in two thousand and five, and
of course we land on that iconic Chippin on sixteen,
which keeps on coming up on social media feeds even
more and more this time of the year. I just
want to take you back to that maybe one of
the greatest holes ever seen in golf. The t shot,
(05:33):
though didn't quite go the way it was planned, ended
up in a place of the course that I've heard
you say you'd never been to.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Look, it's interesting, you know, it's the sixteenth time and
a Gasta at Sunday. The pin placement's always in the
same place. It's on the left hand side there, close
to the bunker. So obviously you've got to hit the
shot forty feet right of the hole and just let
it come down the hill. So when Tiger hits the shot,
immediately I'm thinking, wow, that's left, and then you're thinking
it's in the bunker. And then you think, wow, no,
(06:01):
that's not in the bunk, it's in the water. And
then I'm thinking, no, actually that's over the water. I
don't know what's over there. So as we're walking up,
you know, I'm walking quite quickly and Tigers behind me,
and he keeps yelling me, you know, asking me.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Where is it?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Steve, It was right, where is it? And I managed
to get Ian Baker Fince's attention. He was up on
the camera tower behind the fifteenth Grand and I just
managed to get his attention and said, is that okay
and just put his thumbs up.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So I didn't know where it was. I've never been
over there, you know.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
It's just I'd not seen a player play from over
there before because obviously, when the pin is down there
where it is on Sunday, you're aiming, you know, you're
aimed to the right, and if there's any tendency, generally
the players will hit it too far right. But yeah,
he goes up there, surveys the shot and so forth,
and what he's trying to do is not get the
(06:48):
ball go too far up the hill so that it
doesn't gather too much free when it comes back down.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
He said.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
He went up there after some you know, he quite
spent quite a bit of time looking at that shot,
and he picked out a ballmark.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
On the greend.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
He said, Steve, do you think if I landed on
that ballmark, I won't go up the hill too far?
And amazingly, which was just an incredible part of the shot,
as he actually landed on that ballmark. Now I could
give him a thousand balls, and he wouldn't do that again. So, yeah,
it's an iconic gold shop. And yeah it's twenty year anniversary,
(07:21):
and you know we cover a bit of that in
the book and that so it was a very special
moment in the book.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Not only that's an iconic Tiger moment. In the book,
we look at quite a few iconic moments.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, there are plenty lots just on Augusta though, Greg Norman,
you're on his bag of course in the eighties, his
collapse at Augusta in nineteen ninety six, you went on
his bag at that time. As I say, but what
did you see from him that day?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Yeah, look, I mean it was you know, as a
great friend of Greg's, it was a tragedy to watch.
I watched the last I can't remember how many holes
I was catting for Ray Floyd in the same time.
I went back to the house I was staying at
and was watching it on TV as it's unfolded. But
ultimately he changed his way that he played. Greg plays
(08:13):
incredibly aggressive, and on Sunday, instead of playing aggressive, he
went to conservative and just trying to protect his lead.
And as it was completely against his nature. He wanted
that talent so badly. That was you know, some players
want to win the Open Championship, some want to win
the US Open, someone to win the masses. He wanted
(08:34):
to be That was the time that he wanted to
win the most, and it meant the most of him,
and he let it slip through his hands, you know,
until three times he had the Larry Mice chipping and
he had the you know, the shot up the eighteenth there,
he fled it way up to the right there. But yeah,
so I actually ended up going back to Florida with
Greg that night, and I spent that night on the
(08:57):
beach with Greg, and we went over that whole round
while we're sitting on the beach and having some beers
and some tears and a lot of tears. And yeah,
for some unknown reason, he got out of his comfort zone,
which he doesn't normally do. He's a very very confident
player and very very confident and in vidilining, and he
got outside his comfort zone and instead of playing aggressive,
(09:21):
he played conservative on Sunday. So what he had done
through rounds one, two, three, he changed on Sunday, and he,
you know, he for some unknown reason he never sort
of put his hand on why he did that. It
should have just been a walk in the park in
a formality. As well as his player.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Adam Scott. You're on his bag when he won the
Masters twenty thirteen. How different a thrill was that for you?
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, look, I mean to be on the bag of
the first Australian to win win at Agasa and the
only one since. Incredibly, Like if you think about the
amount of great players in Australia has produced, you know,
go back to the one night to Kalnabe or Peter Thompson,
Bruce Devlyn, David Graham, all these great players, you know,
to the modern day Jason Day, Adam and Cameron Smith.
(10:06):
The whole post of great players Australias had over the
years to think that only one guy's put that green
jacket on, and you know it was it was an
incredible moment. Ironically, Greg played a part in that. You know,
Adam idolized Greg as a junior growing up. And you
know I met Adam a couple of times when he's
just a little teenager when I was scating with Greg,
(10:27):
and he idolized Greg is a very good amateur player
and idolized Greg.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
On that playoff hole.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
You know, when Adam asked me to read the put there,
and he read the put one way and I said,
that's not even closest. You know, he read a cup
out and I said, that's not even close. It's like
two and a half cups out. I had a note
in my book, my yardage book, and it was from
from believers from nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I had a note that had the pin placement there
and it had an arrow that said, if you're putting
from this direction, it breaks.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
More than it looks.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
And that came from when I was scating with Greg
and when You're not that part and Greg read my
lips because I said when Tiger, When Adam asked me,
I said, that's not even close. This is how far
it was. And Greg read my lips. And Greg was
actually the first person I spoke to, not he wasn't
the first person that called me. But when I got
(11:22):
in the car and I was driving back to the
house where I was staying, the phone rang and it
was Greg and he read my lips and I said, well,
you're not going to believe this. Greg, I had documented
in my yardage book when you had that part and that,
and so he felt pretty special that he had some
tie to that victory. So it was an absolute incredible moment,
(11:43):
you know, like on the eighteenth green, Adam, when you know,
when he hold that put thinking he had won the torny,
you know, come and he was come on, come on,
and he was going berserk, and it's like, hold on
a minute, Tiger, sorry, hold on to that, It's not over.
I had to quickly bring him back to the moment
so that you know, Cabrera still got a hold of go.
He might burdie and he might tie, and that's exactly
(12:04):
what happened. So he you know, you've got to quickly
he had to quickly come back to earth there for
a minute and get back out there for the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So, you know, an incredible moment.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Just for I ask you a couple more questions about this.
One final question about Augusta. The boiler suits they make
you wear as caddies. Do you like those?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Look? Jason? I think that's archaic, you know.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
I just like if I said to you, you know,
you're going to walk ten K's today on one of
the hilliest golf was ever and it might be eighty
five degrees in human Here's what I want you to wear.
You'd go you kidding me, aren't you? I think that's archaic.
I honestly do. I see why they do it. I understand,
but I think in today, in today's world, I think
(12:49):
that should be something.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That's not required by the caddies.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I understand they could wear the green hats and so forth,
but like even if they got a Master's T shirt.
Everybody had a Master's T shirt and they were all,
you know, even if they provided the same color shorts
and a T shirt with a player's name and the
logo ovals no.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
All right. The process of this book, the genesis of it,
I know, came from a podcast series you did during
COVID when you sort of went through major by major
and then there was the you know, the opportunity to
make it into into a book. How did you find
the process of writing this? Was it an enjoyable process
going back over, you know, in quite a lot of detail,
the time that you had together with Tiger.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Yeah, it was it was like a memory, a road
down memory lane, Jason, to get out all my notes,
all my book, all my statistics, and spend some time.
We were very fortunate that the publisher allowed us a
couple of extra months and what would normally be given
or granted to write a book, so they gave us
(13:54):
a bit of extra time. I found it absolutely enthralling
to go to our memory lane and pull out all
the stuff that I had and all the note I
kept an amazing amount of notes, not just on statistics,
but on moods and feelings and observations I'd made, and
to put all those out and all those great moments
and so forth, and then you know, do some actual
(14:15):
study on it. So Evan and I were trying to
give the viewer, the reader, sort of a backstage pass
to arguably one of the greatest stretches of golf ever
played by the greatest players that have played the game.
Give them a sort of backstage pass to what actually
goes on. You know, what is it like to travel
in a private jet, What is it, What are the
celebrations like after these majors, what are the practice sessions
(14:37):
later and so forth? Give the reader a backstage pass
to something. And you know, we're really pleased the way
it turned out, and we were pretty confident that the reader,
you know, when they read a lot of these iconic
moments and what they all meant, how they came about,
what went into it.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
We think the reader will love the story.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, I found myself. I paired the book with YouTube.
Basically every time something was mentioned in here, I'd go
and look at it so I could see see it
playing out. Do you reckon? You could tell on the
morning of a round whether Tiger was going to have
a good round or not by his mood.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Look, as I alluded to, I kept so many notes
and so many things, and you know, I tried to
visualize myself standing in Tiger's shoes every day. So when
he came to the golf course every day, and quite
often i'd be driving him, i'd pick him up, or
I might be staying at the same hotel, or we
could be sharing a house together. But I would observe
how he was walking, what his mannerisms were like, what
(15:34):
the eye contact was like. And then you know, the
very first two, three, four swings of the day on
the range, I would intensely watch those to see whether
there was any kind of hesitancy, any you know, was there,
some joy, was there, some you know smiles that Okay,
I just feeling good today or you know, I'd watch
those and I'd watch the practice session, and a lot
(15:57):
of times the practice session would dictate how you would
start the day. Would we start off conservatively or aggressively
based on the fact that how the practice session went. So,
you know, I and at the end of the day,
I'd go away and I'd write all these things down, Okay,
this is what happened today, and this was eventuated at
the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So yes, by the end of it. Not by the
end of the time, but.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
After probably eighteen months to two years of canning for Tiger,
and I'd accumulated enough notes, had enough round with him
in all the different situations that could unfold, and so
for that that, you know, I'd have a very very
strong indication of what was going to unfold before it unfolded.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
If you, like I've heard you describe Caddying as being
very much like an en course psychologist, how did Tiger
compare to your other O no wrong compatience, but how
did he compare to others you cadded for in that regard?
Speaker 4 (16:47):
We look, I mean, there's no question he's the most
intense player you've ever come across the guy that's more focused,
more dedicated, and you know, he plays to win. Some
guys at the end of a week, a good week
for Tiger is a win and nothing else counts. Some
guys are happy to have a top ten, top twenty,
or some guys just happy to make the cut, make
a check. But his only you know, signal of a
(17:11):
good week is a victory, and that brings a lot
of pressure when you're getting for a guy like that.
But yeah, look, that's just the way it was with Sayer.
He was incredibly intense and that's just, you know, that's
the nature of it.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
So I mean, like I say, the book's terrific. I
know people are going to love reading it. Just to
final question on your golf watching habits these days, I
do you don't watch a lot? Are you going to
watch the Masters?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
You look, I don't really know why, but I've never
really watched much golf.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I used to when I was chatting.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
I'd like to watch the Open Championship because the BBC
has that going all day. So let's say you were
off in the afternoon, you could watch all eighteen holes
in the morning. You see where the wind is, what
the players tendencies were on those holes and so forth.
But look, yeah, I just don't watch golf. I find it,
to be honest, I find it quite boring to watch golf. Yeah,
(18:06):
I guess when you're involved in something in that. But
you know, I did watch in twenty nineteen, you know,
when Tiger won the Masters Championship. I did tune into that.
But no, I won't buyd myself glued to the TV.
I just I don't watch golf period. I mean, I
love watching my rugby and my mother sport.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
As we all do. Hey, Steve again, congrats on the book. Together.
We roared alongside Tiger for his epic twelve year thirteen
Majors Run. Hope you sell heaps. Thanks for having a
chat to us.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, have a good weekend.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Faine, listen live
to News Talk sed B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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