A few weeks ago, Tiger Woods decided to end his twelve year relationship with caddy Steve Williams; I don't think many people lost any sleep over it. In a country where nearly one out of every 10 citizens in unemployed, its hard for most people to feel bad for someone losing their job when they were pulling in at least six-figures a year. To boot, Williams had already been caddying for Adam Scott for a few weeks, so its not like he was going to have to stand in the unemployment line anyways.
So how did we reach this celebrity break-up? For starters, Williams has basically had two jobs from the time he was sixteen: professional tour caddy and race car driver. Ask any child, and most adults for that matter, and I'm pretty sure that there would be a long line of people willing to trade places with Williams. He has been lucky enough to do what he loves for a living for the past 32 years. When Woods was at the height of his career pulling in $10 million a year in tour earnings, Williams was pulling in over $1 million a year and that's just in pay from Tiger; that doesn't count his sponsorship deals with companies such a Valvoline or his racing earnings.
Out of all the commercials you've seen Tiger Woods in, do you remember how many Steve Williams was in? Did a golf club company ever release the Tiger Woods/Steve Williams Blades? The point is that Williams isn't Scottie Pippen if Tiger is Jordan. Yes he did a lot for Tiger, but he was a role player, he wasn't swinging the clubs. In crunch time Woods wasn't able to pass the (golf)ball to Williams to take the last shot.
For one thing, he definitely cost Tiger a win last year at the Chevron World Challenge. When he took his caddy bib off before Graeme McDowell attempted a putt to force a playoff (taking your bib off as a caddy is a way of signaling that the round is over), it motivated McDowell to make the putt and allegedly say "Put that f#cking bib back on" directly to Williams. After the twenty-foot bomb, McDowell eventually won the playoff and that loss may have pushed Tiger's rise to the top back a year or more.
So maybe it was the right time to make a change. Perhaps Woods wanted to distance himself from every aspect of his old life in order to move on. Maybe Woods identified Williams as an enabler and didn't want to fall back into his old habits. The only thing that really matters is that Woods gets back to some semblance of his former career performance. Ultimately Tiger Woods makes the money for TV add dollars, he sells the sports drinks and luxury watches , and writing stories about Woods get more people to read the magazine articles than the albeit amazing piece you once wrote on Vlade Divac back in 1999, Mr. Rick Reilly.
If you're a fan of golf, now would be a good time to start rooting for Tiger Woods, because when he's at his best, the game of golf is just about at its best as well.
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