Tiger Woods’ ex-caddie leaves Adam Scott for LPGA Tour

Steve Williams, Tiger Woods’ erstwhile caddie who most recently looped for Adam Scott, is taking his skills to the LPGA Tour.

The veteran bagman — who handed the sticks to Woods for 12 years and has been by Scott’s side in an on-again, off-again role since he and Woods had a less than amicable split in 2011 — will handle caddie duties for U.S. player Danielle Kang at this week’s New Zealand Women’s Open, according to the New Zealand Herald.

First as a full-time caddie and lately as a part-timer for Scott in his semi-retirement, the native Kiwi will make his debut on the women’s circuit before hooking up with the 2013 Masters winner for their swan song in two Asian events in October.

“I’ve never caddied at any professional women’s event before, so it’ll be a good experience to see if I can learn something from how they do things,” Williams, who strolled the fairways in the employ of Greg Norman and Raymond Scott before hiring on with Woods, told the Herald on Sunday. “Danielle is a good player and once you start the tournament, you want to win, so nothing will change there.”

Scott has worked with a couple of caddies this year and is reportedly in the market for a permanent looper, while Williams would like to handle the luggage for one more season before calling it quits for good.

”I’m not going to caddy for Adam next year, he’ll return to having a full-time caddy. He’s had a job share where he’s had two caddies for the last two seasons but he wants to return to one caddy next season,” Williams said. 


“I’m not interested in caddying full-time any more, I’ve done that enough,” he added. “When you get away from golf there’s still plenty of things to do — I’m pretty keen on my speedway, that takes up much of my summer time, I’ve got a foundation to do a bit of charity work, so always plenty to do.”

Williams would like to achieve a personal benchmark by working inside the ropes for one more year before hanging up the bag.

”[I’m] probably interested to do another season next year, it’s going to be my 40th year next year, so it’s sort of a personal milestone,” he said. “I’d be pretty happy to probably do next year and then sign off, that’d be it for me.”

Williams said mutual connections led to his new gig with Kang, who, in addition to being the reigning Women’s PGA champ, is known for switching loopers in and out — though her caddie carousel is stuck in neutral compared with former world No. 1 and Williams’ fellow Kiwi, Lydia Ko.

It might have seemed a natural fit for Ko (who is on her 10th caddie since turning pro October 2013) to team up with Williams, but for Woods’ ex slamming the unofficial host of this week’s tourney for the first of many changes to her entourage.

Williams did praise Ko for building the Kiwi Women’s Open into the talent-rich — and, for the first time in its eight-year history, LPGA co-sanctioned — tournament it has become, with six of the world’s top 50 golfers set to tee it up at Windross Farm Golf Course in Aukland come Thursday.

”There wouldn’t be this event without Lydia,” Williams told the Herald about the tilt’s three-time winner (2013, 2015, 2016) and defending champion.

Williams, by the way, believes the depth of skills lined up for this week’s contest is even more impressive than when Woods played (and Williams caddied) in the 2002 New Zealand Open.

”It’s a good field,” he observed. “When Tiger was here it only had Tiger and a couple of other players that were in the top 50 in the world.”