Sunday, August 07, 2011

Tiger and Stevie: Leaving A Scar

   I'll give Steve Williams the benefit of the doubt that he didn't intend to upstage his new boss, Adam Scott, in the hours after Scott won the World Golf Championship Bridgestone Invitational but it happened anyway.

   It was inevitable given the timing of it all, Williams being on Scott's bag at Firestone of all places where his former boss, Tiger Woods, had won seven times before with Stevie on the bag and Tiger finishing in the middle of the pack in his first tournament in more than three months.

   For Scott, it was an impressive victory, the kind we thought there might be more of by now. For years, he's been the model of the modern golf swing but his short game and putting, a bugaboo to many, had kept him from winning as often as he might have. Amazingly, Scott switched to the long putter and the hole keeps getting in the way of his 12-footers.

   This win should be about him but it turned into Stevie against Tiger and no one won.

   Williams said it was the best week of his 33-year caddie life and maybe it was but there were some pretty sweet weeks in those 11 or so years he was carrying the bag for Tiger. Pebble Beach. St. Andrews. Torrey Pines.

    Scars leave numb spots and maybe that's what happened with Williams.

   That's not to say Woods didn't help create the strange scenario that has unfolded. We all know what the last 20 months have been like and that would strain the closest relationships.

   Maybe Tiger truly believed it was time to make a break with Stevie. Or, maybe he was irked because Williams picked up Scott's bag at the U.S. Open and stayed with it, wondering if and when Woods was coming back.

   Nothing's simple in Tiger's life anymore, at least not looking in from the outside.

   It's understandable that Williams would feel a sense of joy and vindication with Scott's victory. He took the split from Woods hard. Most of us would.

    Maybe it took something like this to make the split permanent. Maybe it meant leaving a scar.

  

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Both Stevie and Tiger are douch bags.

Anonymous said...

Over at CBSSports.com the overwhelming reaction by posters to Williams' post round comments are those of condemnation of Williams (even though CBS shoved the mic in Williams' face). Is it at all possible that Adam Scott likes Stevie on his bag and doesn't mind letting hime blow off some steam?

Anonymous said...

If Steve Williams didn't intend to slam Tiger he would have immediately posted a response to the media backlash over his comments but he hasn't! Steve is a twinky and will find out the hard way what his absolute role is as a caddie. As I said before, he is great at what he does which is calculate yardage, pull clubs and support his employer but it ends there and he is a liability with baggage now-(no pun). He won't be on Adam's bag in 2012.