Tiger Woods’ ex-student revisits his biggest gaffe: ‘You’re never scared’

Ed’s note: Of Tiger Woods’ all-time greats, his legendary Tiger Slam of 2000-01 — when he simultaneously held all four major titles — ranks close, if not higher. After all, a lot of things need to go right for a player to win one big, let alone four straight, while a lot of things can go wrong on the way to a potential big. Bad back. A cold putter. Even the caddy misstep. Ask Steve Williams, who was Woods’ runner during that historic four-four run.

Williams is an excellent host. He didn’t make many mistakes on the job, but he did make at least one – and it was a biggie. Entering the second round of the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach, Woods withdrew on Saturday due to inclement weather. We pick up the action Friday evening, as told by Kevin Cook in his new book, “Tiger Slam,” which captures the full scope of Woods’ streak in fascinating and colorful detail. You can pick up a copy here.

The following excerpt is excerpted with permission from “The Tiger Slam: The Inside Story of the Greatest Golf Ever Played,” Avid Reader Press © 2024 by Kevin Cook.

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Twenty-five years ago, Tiger Woods achieved the greatest feat in golf history: the “Tiger Slam.” Now, for the first time, the Tommy’s Honor award-winning author presents a thrilling account of Tiger at his most brilliant—dominating the game in a way we’ll never see again.

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Woods spent part of Friday night practicing carpeting in his bedroom at the Lodge at Pebble Beach. Sleeping past midnight, he got up early Saturday morning to meet his coach, Butch Harmon, and Williams at the range at 5:00 am, leaving a few balls in the room. It was sweater heaven. At first, the light was worse than when the second round was called due to darkness, but it got better as the sun rose over the range.

NBC pre-loaded Saturday morning cartoons and Saturday’s Today Show schedule for unscheduled “bonus coverage” of golf starting at 6:30, Tiger Woods time. NBC Sports CEO Dick Ebersol said nothing is happening after the schedule change. “In the era of television, there were two people who attracted viewers beyond their sport, Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan,” said Ebersol. “Obviously Tiger Woods is the third.” He didn’t care about losing the audience if the leader blew up the stage. Tiger’s 12-shot victory in the 1997 Masters was (and still is) the highest-rated golf telecast of all time.

It was going to be more than one peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich day. Before he could run into what promised to be a marathon third round, he had to play the final six holes of Pebble without hitting a stroke back into the field. He and Williams met Jim Furyk, Jesper Parnevik, and their caddies on the 13th tee. While the players were relaxing with the last few swings, Williams reached into Tiger’s golf bag for a ball and didn’t like what he found there.

There were only three Nike travel accessories in the bag we were holding. Williams checked the other bags and found nothing but tees, sandwiches, and a raincoat. Tiger had left three balls, half of them, in his hotel room.

Don’t worry, Williams told himself. Three balls would be more than enough to play the last six holes in the second round. It would probably leave them with two more. Williams wasn’t overly concerned when Tiger took his first drive of the morning in the rough and stepped out, leaving a scuff mark on his new Nike ball, and tossed the ball to a small boy in the gallery. Now they had gone down twice. Williams considered asking the boy to return the ball but did not want to appear on international television. “It wouldn’t be a good look if Tiger Woods kicked the ball out of a happy kid,” he recalled. “It could be tears.”

He kept his thoughts to himself as his player reached the 18th tee to lead the tournament at 9 under par. Then Hogan’s snake hit. After two and a half days of drilling the roads, Tiger introduced the hook “the way to Hawaii,” as he later said. He cursed himself: “Woe to you, king’s axe!” The NBC microphone caught all the words. Within minutes, viewers were calling the network complaining about his language.

The same microphone caught Tiger’s next name. Turning to Williams, he held out his hand and said, “The ball.”

It was Williams’ worst moment. The broad-shouldered Kiwi was perhaps the strongest, toughest caddy in the World and the most popular, a distinction that went to anyone who carried Tiger’s bag. He raced track cars back home in New Zealand and accompanied a player he called “Tigah” on their regular morning races. Williams had laughed at the car crashes, blisters, shin splints, and chaos of following the world’s most visible golfer, but here was a secret discomfort. “I’ve never, ever been so scared,” he recalled. “I’m standing there and my back is shaking. My butt cheeks were absolutely screaming. I don’t want to tell him it’s our last golf ball!”

The tiger was in no mood to stand still and wait. “Give me another f–king ball.”

Williams had found his way into a caddy nightmare. Another part of his job was to check their availability of balls before every round. He did it before the second round started but forgot to check the bag before they played again at 9am that day. Now he feared that he might have his player eliminated in the middle of the US Open. Tiger, who knew the Rules of Golf as well as anyone, could have told him that the situation was not so good. But it was complicated. The Rules of Golf allow a player who runs out of balls to borrow one from another golfer, as long as it is of the same make and model. This clause may have saved Williams’ back last month, when Tiger included the same Titleist that many players were using, but it was no help now. Only one player on the field had one Nike ball made by Bridgestone. Under the rules, a player who borrows and uses a different model of ball incurs a penalty of two strokes. Another option would be for Williams to run to the clubhouse and buy more balls, but Tour Accuracy was not sold at pro shops. Even if he could run to Tiger’s hotel room to grab the three balls he had left, he wouldn’t be back in time to avoid the two-stroke penalty for slow play. So they looked for two strokes in either direction.

Tiger knew nothing about that. Williams wasn’t about to tell him that if he made another bogey, he’d be four over on Pebble’s 18th hole after two missed balls and two penalty strokes. Add another penalty by using one of Furyk’s or Parnevik’s Titleists – now he’ll be lying six. He can’t even knock off a 543-yard drive from the tee to the cup for double bogey. In that case, after lying on six tees, he will need to “birdie” the hole to make a quintuple-bogey 10. It is the best, if not the biggest lead in the history of the US Open, and Williams is to blame. the biggest screw up in caddying history.

He returned Tiger’s driver to the bag, quietly determined to play it safe with a 3-wood removed this time. But Tiger was determined to swing the big stick. He reached the driver.

“Get your master’s hand off that,” Woods said. “Give me the king’s driver!”

Williams offered it. He watched and worried as Tiger laced a drive to the right of the fairway. The three of them were sleeping in a tree, the only cypress standing in the middle of the main road, blocked the way to the green area. From there, the left alignment became a logical game. He was still able to save his 6 with a wedge and a putt that way. “But he wants to hit the best thing on the beach,” remembers Williams, who still doesn’t agree that they hit one ball. Lips zipped, he watched his man open the clubface of his 3-wood and hit a long, curved left-to-right drive that played with disaster all the way to the green. As it turned over the lifeline between the beach and the last hundred yards of the fairway, Williams felt his backside relax. “My heartbeat didn’t return to normal until he got to the green and made bogey.”

Even after dropping the shot into the birdie hole, Tiger led by six strokes through two rounds. No one has ever had such a lead midway through a US Open. Later that morning, the field was cut to 60 regular players and a tie and anyone else within 10 shots of the lead. Tiger was so far ahead that the “within 10 shots” offer didn’t help anyone. Only 17 of the 63 golfers who survived to play the final two rounds were within 10 shots of him.

In the third round, a brutal day of scoring, Woods shot an even-par 71 to stay at 8 under and open his lead to 10. On Sunday, a closing 67 moved him to 12 under and put a cap on what was perhaps the strongest week the game has ever seen. Woods became the first player in US Open history to finish in double digits under par, and his 15-shot victory remains the largest margin of victory in major tournament history.