Stevie Explains How Tiger & Norman Fired Him

Luggage handler supreme Stevie Williams sat down for a compelling Q&A with PGATour.com's Brian Wacker as he prepares to lug Adam Scott's Titleist bag around Kapalua.

Williams comes off as surprisingly human and shares some stellar stories, including how Greg Norman and Tiger Woods made phone calls that ended his successful employment tenures with each.

First, Norman:

I’d caddied for him in Japan and stayed over there to caddie for someone else the following week. The phone rang in the middle of the night -- how (Greg) found the number was amazing because this was before cell phones and the internet and not many people even knew where I was staying that week. I was disappointed to be told over the phone. I thought that wasn’t the right way to do it. It was the first time I had been fired, but it didn’t unsettle me to be honest. Although I had been caddying for nine or 10 years, I was still doing it for fun. It wasn’t a great living. Some years I would caddie in 48 tournaments. That’s just the way it was back then. There were more players than caddies. As for him finding my number, it turned out he had called the tournament and talked to someone who had just happened to ask me earlier in the week where I was staying.

And Tiger's reasoning sounds oddly familiar to the Shark's:

I left New Zealand with the intention of caddying for Tiger in the U.S. Open that year. I was told by his agent he was going to play, even though he had been hurt for the previous month. I had my father-in-law with me and a friend flying in from Oregon who was going to come to the U.S. Open, too. But when I got to the States, I learned (Tiger) wasn’t playing, so we went to Oregon, where I have a summer house. That’s when I got a call from Adam Scott, who had recently let go of his longtime caddie Tony Navarro. Adam heard Tiger pulled out and wondered where I was. I phoned Tiger about it and he said, ‘No problem.’ After some thought, though, he didn’t agree with it. Tiger changed his mind. Well, I’d already told Adam I would be there. I wasn’t prepared to ring Adam up and say I can’t do it. I’m a man of my word. I had no idea I was going to get fired over it. I also hadn’t worked a lot. Not that I needed the money, but I wanted to work. I was told (by Tiger) after U.S. Open that I no longer had a job and it’s as simple as that.

He didn’t fire you after the AT&T National that summer?

Things don’t always transpire the way you want them to. The disappointment for me was that he claims he fired me at AT&T. He didn’t. He fired me over the phone after the U.S. Open. I went to the AT&T knowing I didn’t have a job (with Tiger). That’s just the fact.

He goes on to talk about the difference between looping for Woods and Adam Scott, and says there were days with Tiger where it was a "tough walk." Check it out.

Speaking of Scott, Jim McCabe catches up with the newly minted GWAA Player of the Year and talks to him about playing catch up in the FedExCup points race. I imagine both were laughing as this discussion took place.