Editor's note: In the interest of accurately relaying key quotes, this column contains words some might find offensive.
Steve Williams is a man of many bold emanations.
Some of them tend to wreak havoc. Maybe that's reek, actually.
He is largely known as the barking, hard-guy caddie of world No. 1 Tiger Woods, but Williams has other less-obvious talents. For instance, get wind of this:
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| Phil Mickelson says he's glad to have the caddie on the left, not the right. (Getty Images) |
This time, the source isn't in question.
Williams ranks in a class by himself, which is a far cry from having class itself. Thus, you might want to stay upwind and out of earshot of Williams' loud expulsion over the weekend, a disparaging stink bomb lobbed without provocation at longtime Woods rival Phil Mickelson, who was annoyed enough to publicly fight back.
The latest tiff between the two tribes began over the weekend when, while speaking at a charity event in his native New Zealand and unaware that a reporter was in the mix, Williams called Mickelson "a prick" and also offered an off-color, unflattering aside about Mickelson that actually happened to a different player.
While U.S. wire services declined to pick up the story -– Williams' language would have been largely unprintable, anyway -- it took roughly one day for the, ahem, Down Under remarks to waft back to the United States. Whereupon Mickelson and his management firm fast characterized Williams' stand-up act as anything but comedic, calling the comments "grossly inaccurate and irresponsible."
We're talking about Williams, so the gross part goes without saying. It seems that the caddie was addressing a mixed group of approximately 250 when he was asked about the relationship between Mickelson and Woods, a common query.
"I wouldn't call Mickelson a great player ... 'cause I hate the prick," Williams said.
Golf is a gentleman's game, huh? Tiger camp, you're away.
"I was disappointed to read the comments attributed to Steve Williams about Phil Mickelson, a player that I respect," Woods said via his publicist Monday. "It was inappropriate. The matter has been discussed and dealt with."
A slang Kiwi saying that definitely does not apply to Williams, who has been on Woods' bag since 1999: Choice, bro. Williams, a guy who goes months in the States without uttering a public proclamation, finally opens his trap, then promptly inserts one of his free Nikes? Through his spokesman, Mickelson gave Williams a back-handed slap by caustically comparing Williams to his own caddie, Jim (Bones) Mackay.
"After seeing Steve Williams' comments, all I could think of was how lucky I am to have a class act like Bones on my bag and representing me," Mickelson said Sunday night.
The day after Williams made the public comments, he confirmed to a second New Zealand newspaper that the quotes were accurate, explaining by way of excuse that he didn't know any media was in the mix. So, a guy who can detect a clicking camera in a throng of 20,000 fans didn't assume his behavior might be recorded? He must be rusty after his six-month layoff.
As if his crass choice of words wasn't bad enough, Williams elected to add a splash of fiction to spice it up. In an apparent attempt to entertain the group, Williams related a story about how Mickelson had been pestered at the U.S. Open by a fan who was seeking to get his attention. The fan repeatedly yelled Mickelson's name to no avail, and when Lefty finally turned to acknowledge him, the fan yelled, "Nice tits."
It never happened. The incident in question, which took place at the 2002 U.S. Open in New York, reportedly involved a famous European Tour player. Mickelson's management group called the Williams story "an absolute fabrication." A day later, speaking with another Kiwi daily, Williams' defense rang both hollow and naïve.
"I certainly didn't make it to a media person," he told a New Zealand paper. "I visit a lot of golf clubs and do a lot of speaking for charity and that is one of the questions I get asked the most: What is Tiger's relationship like with Phil Mickelson?
"I was simply honest and said they don't get along. You know what it's like. You're at a charity event and you have a bit of fun."
Actually, they get along fine, considering both the stakes involved and their divergent personalities. They are foes, but hardly mortal adversaries. The relationship is professional, cordial and civil. There's never been an admission of interpersonal friction until Williams piped up, but at least he owned up to his comments. Alas, then he dumbly crawled even farther out on the limb.
"I don't particularly like the guy myself," he said of Mickelson. "He pays me no respect at all and hence I don't pay him any respect. It's no secret we don't get along, either."
Either? Woods can throw his own stones, mate. Recapping here: Tiger doesn't get along with Phil, Stevie thinks Phil needs a training bra and doesn't respect the guy, which is apparently a mutual feeling. Gee, assuming the latter is true, I guess we can all understand why Mickelson isn't crazy about certain Kiwi caddies.
The skirmish received little initial play in the States, though sports chat shows were catching up by Monday morning. Imagine the thermonuclear holocaust that would have ensued if a comparable statement had come from Mackay about Woods.
It's not difficult to imagine how Woods is processing all this. He probably has a resigned look on his face similar to when playing partner Mickelson, at the Ryder Cup matches in Detroit four years ago, whacked a tee shot so far offline, it landed stone dead against a chain-link fence. This is a decidedly different brand of alternate shot. A cornerman is involved, too.
While it provides great grist as far as generating storylines into 2009, Woods likes controversy as much as he does pay cuts. He's set to stage his first major press conference since the U.S. Open on Wednesday at the renamed Chevron Challenge in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Even with all the pending questions about his surgical comeback, 2009 schedule, the economy and impending fatherhood, the uncomfortable Mickelson rift will surely be addressed.
It put Woods in an interesting predicament. What's a boss supposed to do when an employee embarrasses the company? Make no mistake, Williams dropped trou on his employer's manicured, closely mown lawn and needed to be taken behind the Woods' shed. Maybe he loudly repeated the mantra expected of all caddies: Show up, keep up and, most important, shut up.
Tiger and Phil will be Ryder and Presidents cup mates for, oh, another decade. They are often paired together in the same group, like during the first two rounds of the U.S. Open last summer. Given their background and deep-seated desire to annihilate each other on the golf course, there's enough strife already without a professional pack mule adding gratuitous cheap shots.
Woods and Williams two jog and work out together on the road, and Woods was best man at his caddie's wedding, so sacking the bagman was never an option. For certain, any attempt at an apology by Williams, who turns 45 in two weeks, would be transparently ridiculous.
It never dawned on me until this serve-and-volley exchange began how much the respective caddies and players are alike. Mickelson and Mackay are approachable, if not even affable, often handing out autographs and goodies to fans for hours. Meanwhile, Woods and Williams are there to kick ass and take down names, not write the latter on pieces of memorabilia for eBay hawkers.
It's sorta like the old saw about dog owners. Fat guys buy jowly bulldogs and high-maintenance rich chicks buy poodles. You know, because dogs often mirror the personality and appearance of the owner.
Williams, a professional barrel cactus during office hours, has forever brought criticism upon himself. Deep down, many believe Woods gets a kick out of watching his sergeant-at-arms brusquely police the perimeter. Williams does the dirty work and doesn't care if he's perceived as popular or not. But that was before it began reflecting negatively on Woods, or before the inane name-calling began.
Williams isn't evil incarnate, either. He and his wife recently donated $1 million to a New Zealand children's hospital. Now a father, the guy has seemingly mellowed a bit over the past three or four years, and even for us media lemmings inside the ropes who occasionally draw his attention at the wrong time, his trademark bark has become more of a snarl.
This unsolicited attack seemingly complicates things. His crude comments notwithstanding, Williams predicted that Woods will let the matter slide.
"He knows the media," Williams told a Kiwi newspaper. "You make a comment and they blow it all out of proportion."
Not this time, mate. You blew words out your you-know-what, and now you must endure the odor.
