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Caddie-turned author Steve Williams talks golf maintenance

By |  March 8, 2016 0 Comments

As a caddie Steve Williams has accumulated 150 tournament wins, tens-of-millions of dollars and formed relationships with some of the best golfers of a generation. Now he can add a tell-all memoir, Out of the Rough, to his résumé.

In the book, written with journalist Mike Donaldson, he dives into his days caddying for Greg Norman to Tiger Woods to Adam Scott, the top golf courses to compete on and why he publicly feuded with Phil Mickelson.

Williams’ publicity manager recently sent us an advance copy of the new book (Seth is still in the first few chapters but tells me that so far it’s better than he expected) and then reached out to Golfdom for an interview opportunity. We jumped at the chance to ask the 36-year veteran caddy a few questions about his experience with golf course maintenance.

Williams has been caddying since the late ’70s and, like some of our readers, has seen golf maintenance advance over the past almost 40 years. He gave us two changes that stand out to him.

“Like most things, the technology that has gone into all the equipment used to maintain golf courses has evolved,” said Williams. “The biggest change is the improvement to today’s fairways at many events on Tour, are better than some greens years ago.”

Major golf course maintenance improvements are obvious but sometimes on the professional events the conditions don’t meet the high standards. Williams probably heard Gary Player’s rant about the conditions at Chambers Bay’s 2015 U.S. Open from his home in New Zealand. He shared with us his opinion about the tournament:

“Last year’s U.S. Open at Chambers Bay had greens that were not what you would expect to find at a major, and it was disappointing the players were not notified prior to the event,” said Williams. “If they had been notified there wouldn’t have been so much negativity around the event.”

We’re sorry to inform any of you out there that thought you had a heart-to-heart with Williams because he admitted that he personally doesn’t know any superintendents at event host courses, but added that they have provided him useful information.

“It’s always very helpful to seek (the superintendent) out and find out any info you can that will help you,” said Williams. “Things such as the prevailing wind and what speed do the greens differ from early in the morning to late in the day can be helpful.”

In the book Williams lists his top 10 courses, so of course we had to put him on the spot and ask him what course is the No. 1 when it strictly comes to maintenance (we made him exclude Augusta National).

“Muirfield Village in Ohio where the Memorial is played is always in unbelievable condition,” said Williams. “I feel sorry for the greenskeepers there when it rains and the course gets muddy. It takes away some of their hard work that goes into having a course in perfect shape.”

Out of the Rough is available March 29, in time to grab a copy before your flight to Augusta.

This article is tagged with and posted in Online Exclusive, People


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