Steve Williams and Tiger Woods enjoyed a tremendously successful period together.
Williams began working on Woods‘ bag in 1999 and the duo remained together until 2011.
The New Zealand national caddied for Woods during 13 of his 15 major championship victories.
Interestingly, Williams recently admitted that he would work with Woods again if he was asked to, in spite of their acrimonious split.
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In the time since they’ve been separated, Williams has still spoken very highly of the 50-year-old PGA Tour star.
Williams said Woods was the best player he has ever seen, and it’s hard to argue against that particular notion.
However, one thing Williams has just said really is hard to believe.
Steve Williams reveals the secret behind Tiger Woods’ 2000 season
Williams knows Woods better than most people, so it’s always interesting to listen to anything he has to say about the greatest of all time.
However, it’s also fair to say that Williams has been known to embellish stories about his former employer.
In Williams’ recently released book: Together We Roared, he opened up on one of the reasons why Woods was so dominant in the early-2000s.
Williams explained: “The Nike ball made it very easy for Tiger to keep the trajectory where it needed to be; it didn’t balloon into the air vertically and it didn’t drift sideways on a crosswind so much.“
“You would have to say it was worth one or two shots per round,“ William said when asked to quantify just how crucial the Nike Tour accuracy ball was to Woods.
It has to be said, that is surely an exaggeration from Williams.
One-two shots per round? At the highest level of the game, that is a huge amount.
Woods averaged 67.794 throughout the 2000 season. However, had he used any other ball, Williams’ claims mean that he would have averaged the same score as Stewart Cink, in a tie for seventh on the PGA Tour scoring average list.
It doesn’t add up. Woods was far superior to every other player at the time and Williams’ claim about the golf ball is almost an insult to his former boss, if anything at all.
Tiger Woods’ incredible 2000 season
Tiger put the Nike Tour accuracy ball in his bag in the spring of 2000, and the rest is history.
The 50-year-old won nine times in 20 events during the 2000 season, including the final three majors of the year.
He won the US Open by 15 shots and the Open Championship by eight.
Tiger then triumphed at the PGA Championship before winning the first major of 2001 at Augusta National.
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He incredibly held all four major titles at the same time, a feat which has since become known as the ‘Tiger Slam’.
The 15-time major champion produced golf in the 12 month period from May 2000 through to April 2001 that had never been seen before.
Scottie Scheffler has been doing similar things over the past two years but he needs to sustain his form for another decade if he is to reach Woods’ level.
2000 Tiger Woods was a completely different animal and, according to Steve Williams, he had the Nike Tour accuracy golf ball to thank for that.
However, even without the Nike ball, Woods surely would have dominated due to his explosive power off the tee, his pinpoint iron play and unrivalled short game.
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