← Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset
Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset
What Tiger Woods’ Caddie Learned From 13 Majors
00:58:39
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Sean
Facts.
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Steve Williams
A lot of guys in sport, they just practice and they practice and practice. But like a guy like Tiger, every single time he practiced, every single shot he hit had some purpose to it. By continually putting yourself under pressure during practice, it just became second nature.
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Sean
That's the key for the audience listening. Whatever you're doing in your life right, you have to do with intention and purpose. You can go to work and you can just be there. You can go to practice and just be there. But are you really doing everything with a purpose?
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Steve Williams
Sharp French.
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Luck
What up? This one Luck. I let the pain inspire me. I put my all in. Everything I'm doing up until it's done, I'm me for the entirety. I put it in overtime. I'll be working. Just know I'mma go for mine cause I earned it. They watch and I know it's time I confirmed it the whole society Determined.
- [02:21]
Steve Williams
Determined.
- [02:24]
Sean
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Determined Society. I am Here with an amazing guest. He's an author of a brand new book called Together Reward. You may have seen him on tv. PGA Tours winning major championships with none other than Tiger Woods. I have Steve Williams here with me. His book chronicles and actually memoirs, a history from 1999 to the year 2011 as Tiger woods caddy, but winning 13 majors in that time frame, which is the most dominant time in the history of golf. So I have with me today none other Steve Williams. What's up, buddy?
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Steve Williams
Yeah, good. Sean, how you doing today?
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Sean
Hey man, I'm, I'm great. You say today, it's Friday for you and it's Thursday for me. You're on the other side of the world, living in the future. I'm envious. How does it look?
- [03:14]
Steve Williams
Yeah, yeah. A bit of a time difference zone between Florida and New Zealand and, and also a long way to travel as well if you're traveling from, from Florida, New Zealand. So yeah, other side of the world for us.
- [03:24]
Sean
Yeah, man, I do. I've never been to New Zealand, but I've always have been intrigued. It's, it's a beautiful country and hopefully one day I'll be know.
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Steve Williams
Yeah, look, I mean I've had numerous people come here from the United States that have never been here before and you know, they fall in love with the place. It's a small country, but it's got so much beauty to it and yeah, people just, people just love it here. It's a great place. So you'll have to get here one day.
- [03:46]
Sean
Hey, man, don't tend to deal with a good time. It sounds like a blossom. Like I said, I know many people that have been from there and like, hey, my country is just so beautiful. It's just there's so much beauty in, you know, in that area. So maybe one day either, maybe when the kids will. Or do my wife will come out there. Be able to enjoy yourself.
- [04:04]
Steve Williams
Yeah. Cool.
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Sean
Well, listen, so very happy to have you on the show. Very decorated career, obviously you know, in the mix during, in. In many people's opinion the most dominant time involved like that. That 13 major championship run in 12 years with Tiger woods was epic. Right. But your relationship was much more than just professional relationship. And we'll get into all the, the things with your book, but I just the audience that isn't familiar with you. Can you give them a brief, just quick, you know, overview of who you are, what you've done and where you're at now?
- [04:41]
Steve Williams
Yeah, well, Sean, I've been a caddy my whole Life. So unlike a lot of people that have only maybe had several jobs, several positions, whatever, I've actually been a caddy my whole life. The day I left school I started caddying and carried right till I retired. I'm 62 years old now. I retired about four years ago from cadding. So I spent 42 years cadding, nothing else. And in that time pretty much had four full time gigs along with, you know, when you caddy you carry for other people occasionally in there. But pretty much my full time gigs were Greg Norman and then American Ray Floyd, then Tiger woods, then Australian Adam Scott. So yeah, just carried my whole life. Big speedway fan, dude, speedway. I've just competed in speedway for a lot of years. Run my own foundation here in New Zealand and I'm a big fan of rugby, our national sport, New Zealand and golf of course. So yeah, but yeah, just being academy my whole entire life.
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Sean
That's awesome. You, as you said, you mentioned there's people that worked about you know, five, ten jobs throughout their whole life. You know, you were blessed enough to, to find what you loved from the beginning and stick with it and have an illustrious career. Now I don't want to overlook the speedway. I know you're a big racer. You know, talk to me about that because to me I, I don't know if I want to get in a car going over 80. That's just me. But you know, you, you love the speed, you level us up and I'm not mistaken, you did have a crash that hospitalized you too, didn't you?
- [06:08]
Steve Williams
Yeah, I compete. We call them saloons, super saloons here in New Zealand. In America they call them late models. It's a dirt track, oval dirt track racing. Very high horsepower cars that race on dirt tracks. Yeah. And it's a sport that ideally love. I follow it today probably closer than I follow any sport. I just love the racing and I still race a little bit myself. Not as often as I used to. Getting a little bit long in the tooth sometimes with racing but still this past season I've done about half a dozen meetings. Yeah, it's just, it's just a sport that I really love and I'm very fortunate to have won two national championships and only, only one of a handful of drivers who've won national championships in two separate divisions. So quite proud of that achievement. But yeah, and when you race, it's not when you're going to wreck it. It's not if you're going to wreck, it's when you're going to wreck so, yeah, I had a. Well, I've only ever had one real major crash. And it was quite funny because it happened on a Saturday night. And I was due to be going to Hawaii on the Monday to caddy for Tiger at the seasoning opening. Back then, I think it was called the Tournament of Champions. It was the seasoning open tournament at Kapalua for all the winners from the previous year. I broke a few ribs and I deep. What they call de. Gloved my hand. I pretty much sliced my hand in half. Lost a finger in that. And the. The surgeon said, well, there's two things you can't do. One is swim and two is fly. And that was on Saturday night, early Sunday morning, the hospital. And the first thing I did on Monday was fly to Honolulu and onto Kapalua. Then the first thing I did when I get there, had a swim. So. So And. And went on to have a good week. So. Yeah, yeah, when you. When you race speedway at high speed and that, and there's always going to be accidents and that, but, yeah, no, it's a sport that I daily love and like I said, I follow it. You know, to this day, I really. I follow it a lot.
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Sean
So two national championships and two different duplicants. One of the only. You said the only one to ever do that, like, dude, you win wherever you go, man.
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Steve Williams
What's that?
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Sean
You wanted everything you do.
- [08:18]
Steve Williams
Yeah, well, you know, you put a lot of. A lot of effort, a lot of determination, a lot of the desire. Yeah. When I. Every time. When you set out to do something, you've got to have a goal in mind. And when I set out to do speedway, I actually had a goal in mind. I wanted to win three separate championships and three separate divisions, but I actually never got out of racing the two divisions that I raced because I loved them so much. I had a. A third one in mind, but I never actually made the transition to that class. That's fair.
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Sean
But. I know I said that jokingly, but, you know, a lot of times when we look at people that not only just chase greatness, but achieve it, there's some certain characteristics and traits. Right. That go along with those individuals that transcend different verticals. Right. Sports. You know, you have golf and then you also have racing. Like, you know, they're two completely different things, but the mindset has to be one of the same. Can you walk the audience through what you feel those traits are for you and how you apply them in everything you do?
- [09:19]
Steve Williams
Yeah, look, I mean, you. Whenever you do something you just got to start out and you've got to have goals, and that would start out with being a weekly goal, monthly goal, a yearly goal, and a career goal. And that's what you do. You've got to, you've got to make those clear to yourself what you want to do and how you're going to go about and achieve them. And, and it gives you something to focus towards every day, to, to work hard towards. And then when you, you know, every time you have a little mini goal and, and, and you get some kind of a successful achievement, you got to celebrate that and then go on to the next one and that. It just gives you something to look forward to, to work to. Tiger was absolutely no different to that. When I first went to talk with Tiger about taking the jobs and we talked about his goals and what he was wanting to succeed with, and, you know, his goal was to break Jack's record of. Jack. Jack had 18 major championships and he wanted to break that record. And that's what drove him every day to greatness. You know, obviously a fantastic player, hugely talented, got everything going, but, you know, he had a goal and nothing was going to get in his way of trying to succeed and break that goal. So, you know, and nothing's impossible without getting. If you get the right people around you. In my case, it would be the crew of a race car. In Tiger's case, it would be his manager, his caddy, his trainer and personnel in his office. Get the right people around you that believe in you and support you. You know, you can do anything. But it's very, I believe it's very important to have goals, not just sort of amber along and hope to do something. If you write something down and see it in front of you every single day, it makes you want to work hard and strive towards it. And whether you achieve your goals or you don't achieve your goals, if you can honestly say to yourself, you know, I worked as hard as I could, I believed to myself, I did everything I could to achieve those goals. Well, you've achieved something anyway. And as long as you have fun along the way, that's the key. Whatever you do, you've got to have fun. If you've got, you know, sometimes you might have too lofty. The goals you set might be too lofty, and it's going on dragging you down because you might not get there or the crate, then you can readjust. But as long as you enjoy the journey, that's what counts.
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Sean
I love that, Steve. There's so many Amazing things you said there. Right. You know, one of the big things that I want to lash on to for the audience listening and watching right now, really, really pay attention to this one. You said have goals, work towards them every day. When you hit that goal, you go and chase another goal. A lot of people think once they hit that goal, that's the finish line. And what we have to understand in life and in sports and whatever profession or career or thing that we're chasing, those are benchmarks. Right. And as long as you're still active, there's other goals to achieve. Right. As somebody. And you mentioned Tiger, obviously, that. That is Dr. Was driven to be Jack's record. Right. Was there ever, any moment. We'll probably already know the answer, but for the audience, was there ever, any moment that you saw him get comfortable, you had to redirect him back to his original.
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Steve Williams
No, 100% not. Look, he, he, he, you know, he. He was just, you know, when you, when you set your, you know, you. Like I said, you have a, you know, weekly goal, monthly goal, yearly goal, and your ultimate goal, you know, you know, that ultimate goal is going to be something that, you know, for a professional golfer, it's probably, you know, getting the number one player in the world or something like that, and only a very certain handful, handful of guys can do that. But, you know, so ultimately, the very final goal is probably something that you may never, ever actually reach. You know, something that's just going to keep you going all the time. In Tiger's case, that was Jack's major championship record. And he never took his foot off his gas. He never looked sideways. He just kept his every. And, like, you know, when he would play. I give you an example of the sort of intensity around that. When Tiger won the US Open at Pebble beach in 2000 by 15 shots, arguably one of the greatest performances we'd ever seen in the modern game to win a major championship. You know, he was three under par, and the next guy was 12 over. Sorry, wrong way around. He was 12 under and the next guy was three over. The, the, the, the first thing that Tiger said to me after he signed the scorecard, before he went to the trophy presentation, he said, steve, I want you to get your ass over to St. Andrews, Scotland. That was the next major championship, the Open Championship. He said, I'm going to play better. So, you know, so that's the intensity that was around that. There was no sort of big celebration of winning the US Open with this record margin. His focus had the moment he had signed a school card and signed off his focus. Next major championship at St. Andrews, of course, that he loved and he wanted to win that championship. And of course, that, you know, when he. When he did win that championship, that was the grand. You know, that was winning all four of the major championships, you know, the Grand Slam. Not so that, you know, that was the kind of focus that he had. It was, you know, the drive to beat Jack's record took precedent to everything he did. And of course, you know, when you, for him and anybody else later in life, when children come along, you get a bit older and there's more responsibilities and, you know, you've got more things to do because of who you've become and so forth. But. But. But he was always able to separate that and never took his gas off the foot, off the gas. As far as the practice, the preparation, that. Everything that went into winning major championships, getting himself, you know, ready for those tournaments, you know, for major championships, you got to win those. You've got to peak for that week. That's the key. And he was able to do that better than anybody. That when he played in a major championship, he was always fresh, he was always ready, and he was, you know, he hadn't coming off playing too many weeks where he wasn't tired or whatever it might be. He was ready to go. And. Yeah, you know, like, even for myself, watching a guy like that, you know, even though I was working alongside somebody, to actually work alongside and watch and follow a guy with that much determination and drive to succeed was very, very impressive to watch.
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Sean
You know, it's. It's one of those things, Steve, where. Yo. You mentioned he won that tournament by 15. By 15 trucks, right? It says, see, get your ass Scotland. I'm gonna play better. A lot of people would say, right, because when I, again, on a level of what I do, right, I hit a benchmark. I say, okay, what's next? Right away. And people will tell me, we enjoyed this for a little bit and then move on. For high performers like Tiger, you like me in this space, right? We enjoy it in our own way, right? That. That chase and that pursuit for the next one is. That's the celebration and the work that goes into it, right? I mean, have you guys ever, like, sat there, like, identified that? Or is it just second nature to you guys? Because for me, it's just I move on. I'm like, okay, this is cool. We did this. Well, let's do this next month. And that's the. That's the celebration for Me, man.
- [16:15]
Steve Williams
Yeah. Look, I mean, everybody, you know, Sean, everyone has a different way they go about things. And I would have to say that Tiger woods would be very unique in the way that he went about things. And you know, some guys win a golf tournament, particularly a major championship, you know, they might go on a two or three day bender after the thing. You know, Tiger maybe have one drink, a quiet cigar, and his focus would be to the next major championship. I mean, he, he. So when you, you know, every time towards the later part of the years when I was getting from, you know, and each time it was another step up the ladder, the ultimate goal became clearer. And when that ultimate goal becomes clearer and it doesn't seem too far away, then the actual work ethic and the desire gets further and further ahead. You know, you work even harder. Because now this thing, you know, it starts off as a goal and is it a realistic goal? Well, you know, who knows? But then when it actually becomes a reality that you can get there, then the focus becomes even more intense and the chase becomes greater. And like you mentioned, that's your kind of satisfaction is okay, I'm one step closer now. You know, if I can get the next one or one of the next two or whatever it might be. You know, so there's a, you know, but like, then there's the opposite side of that. You know, some people, you know, they celebrate in other ways. You know, I know some of the golfers, they finished on Sunday, win a major championship, and I still hung over on Thursday for the up in the next tournament. So everyone goes about things different ways, but when you have a, when you're chasing a, a goal that's at the level that was Tiger was trying to chase, I mean, you know, there was no, there was just no, no, no time for anything else but, you know, chasing that goal and putting every single effort you could into it.
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Sean
Yeah, I, I mean, I, I love that. Right. I agree with that. And it's. You look, from what you're telling me that I, I hear, I remember Kobe Bryant, right. He's one of the greats, right? It's like he was a world championship. He's in the gym at 4am they want to say practicing because now. Right, that's over. He did that. But then the next year is still going to come. Who has to say sharp? That's the difference between being a really good golfer or really good basketball player and being one of the greatest ever. There's a, there's a difference.
- [18:26]
Steve Williams
Yeah, look, there's, there's a mindset, you know, if you, if you take all the great athletes, you know, you know, one, one thing that makes an athlete so good, if you look at Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky, you know, a Tiger woods, ultimately, what makes those guys so good is that, yes, they're incredible athletes. Yes, they work hard, but so do they all. But what makes them so special is they have the ability to perform their best when it means the most. And that. That's where it comes into the mental side of things. And that, that you can perform your best under the utmost pressure. You know, look at Michael Jordan and all those extraordinary playoff games and that. Look at the guy like Roger Federer under the most intense pressure of tennis major championships. Tiger and the golf things. So those guys that have, that, you know, have reached the absolute pinnacle of their sport, you know, they're fantastic players. They have, you know, they work incredibly hard and that, but they just have that little bit of extra mental edge. And that's something you can't teach. That's something you've got, you know, you've got that mental capacity to be able to thrive under pressure. You know, that you play and, you know, you can't teach someone that. But how do you do that? Like, you know, a lot of guys in sport, they just practice and they practice and practice. But like, a guy like Tiger, every single time he practiced, every single shot he hit had some purpose to it. You know, he'd go to the range, you know, and I don't want to devolve too much here because the book is like a backstage pass to how it all goes about, you know, how did Tiger become so good? What made him so good? What were these major championships like? And, you know, Evan, who I co wrote the book with, we've tried to give the reader a backstay pass, but, you know, so these, when Tiger would go to practice, he'd hit the first few shots just to get loose, get a feel on that. Then every single shot had a purpose, and he'd visualize what that shot was going to be and often put himself in a position. Okay, here I am, Tiger woods. Sunday, the 12th hole, Augusta, with nine iron in my hand. Here's the flag of that. And. Excuse me. And, you know, hit the shots in that. So by continually putting yourself under pressure during practice, when you, you, when you became. When you're playing and you're under practice, under pressure, it just became second nature.
- [20:39]
Sean
See, that's the key for the audience listening. Whatever you're doing in your life, right? You have to do with intention and purpose. You can go to work and you can just be there. You can go to practice and just be there. But are you really doing everything with a purpose? And see, so greats like Tiger woods, they go through those moments and visualize where they're at. They put themselves in that pressure filled situation to where this just isn't practice, this is the real deal. And they follow a process every single day without fail. No matter how they feel. They have discipline, they go through it and they run their play every day. So that way when it does get time, you've already done it a thousand times.
- [21:20]
Steve Williams
100. Now I, I would frequently in my time counting for Tiger, get to a shot and you know, it's a high pressure shot. A lot, a lot at stake. It's end of the tournament and I just say, tiger, it's just another seven, nine. Like you've hit on the range 10,000 times. It's just another seven iron, you know, so you just make, you know, make the picture as clear as you can and you just go ahead and do it. You know, it's like you said or like a lot of people just go through the motions and they think that because I've done this, done that and do that, well, you know, I've ticked that off maybe that, you know, lead to some, you know, greatness on that. But, you know, there's more to. You just can't go through the motions to get greatness.
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Sean
No, absolutely. And that's a gift, right? That, that's, that's something that's developed. Some people have it naturally. You know, I think, you know, for me growing up and playing baseball, I every time I picked up a battery, every time I did something on a baseball field, it was with a purpose. I was always putting more pressure on myself when no one was watching. So that way when someone was actually watching, I was ready. And it's a very undervalued skill or a process, right, to put yourself in those positions, to visualize like earlier, you visualizing something in a major and the final hold, a final shot to win it. Anybody that is in sports or, or actors or anything like that, visualizing it is one thing. But feeling the attainment, I feel is so important. When you would you visualize it, feeling the feelings of what it would feel like when you do do it, I think is just as important as visualizing.
- [23:01]
Steve Williams
Yeah. 100. So we, you know, all that stuff is possible and you can do it when you practice. So like you said, you just can't Go through the motions. You've got to put yourself mentally into that position that, you know, you might ultimately be in. Whether that's, you know, shooting a three pointer to end the game, being the last man on deck to hit a home run to win the game in golf, hitting the ultimate shot, or holding the putt. I mean, you know, you hear professional golfers talk about all the time when they're practicing on the putting green and they visualize themselves having this putt to win this tournament, this tournament that you've got to do that frequently and you've got to build that up to a very climatic situation in your own mind and then apply the focus in practice and keep continually making you do it and make it happen under the pressure that you put yourself under. There's a lot to be said for all that kind of thing. And everything you do, you just continually build that pressure up inside you and to the point where you can handle that pressure. And even when you're doing it, you know, just on your own or with a small amount of people around you, however it might be, ultimately, if you can continue to succeed in that and then you put yourself in that position in the golf tournament, it'll become more natural to you to be able to do it under the situation. But then, look, golf is such a different sport to so many other sports because, you know, most sports are a reactive sport. You know, you play baseball, the pitcher throws the ball, you, you hit it. It's a reaction from a delivery of a pitch. The basketball, you receive that from somebody else, you know, but golf, you're hitting a stationary object. It's a mind game, probably more than any other sport. So, you know, the. A lot of sports, there isn't time for pressure because everything's a reaction, reactive thing. Whereas golf is not a reactive sport. It's a stationary object. You're on your own. So, you know, there's probably, as far as pressure goes in golf, there might be more mental pressure in golf than, Than most sports.
- [25:05]
Sean
I never thought of it that way, man. That's. That's impactful, right? Because I always think sports, you know, pressure is pressure, right? We break it down like that. You know, in baseball, yeah, you might get anxious on the on deck circle or in the dugout, but once you're up in the box, like you, you're just reacting. Hopefully you're not thinking too much. The brakelets don't. Right. Anybody productive is just going to c ball, hit ball, have a plan and approach, you go with it. But golf, you're Right. A stationary object, man, there's. There's nothing to go off of. Right. There's nothing to play off other than when you say it's time. Right. You're not.
- [25:39]
Steve Williams
Yeah, well, you know, you think about a quarterback, you know, that the receiver has. He takes the catch off a fantastic throw from. From the quarterback. That's a reactive thing in that, you know, like, golf is so different because the object is stationary and, you know, so there's so much pressure in yourself because you're standing over there over. Over a stifling object. Well, every other sport, most other sports, you receive the ball or you give the ball, it's a reaction from somebody else. So, yeah, you've. You've heard over and over, Sean, these are, these are saying in golf, you know, it's a game of six inches, and that six inches is between the two years that, you know, there's, you know, I think golf has, you know, an extraordinary amount of pressure compared to a lot of other sports. You know, like, let's just, you know, okay, if you look at tennis now, okay, there's some pressure when you're serving because, you know, you've. You're serving, but when you. Every other shot outside of a serve, you're hitting off a return from somebody else, you know, so a lot of times in a lot of other sports that are reactive sports, there isn't time to think about the pressure because everything happens instantly. And sometimes it happens when, you know, they expect it to happen, and you received the ball when you weren't expecting to receive the ball. But in golf, you know, you know, everything, you know, you teed up, you hit it there, you hit it there, you know, so completely different sport. But, yeah, in the book, we take a good look at, you know, how Tiger was able to compartmentalize everything and spend so much time focusing on these major championships. And, yeah, so, like, it was for me as a caddy to walk alongside a guy that's played arguably the, you know, like, who's the greatest golfer that ever played? Well, we're never going to win that debate, you know, Is it Jack? Is it Tiger? Well, we all know Tiger played golf at a level like nobody else has played. Of course, even Jack would agree to that. But Jack has 18 majors and Tiger has 15 major. So. But to, you know, for, like, to walk alongside a guy that's played golf unlike anybody else for a sustained period of time was pretty special.
- [27:47]
Sean
No, absolutely. But, but look, man, like, that's part of it, right? But you guys also had A personal relationship. What was it like watching Tiger from the point where you met him as an amateur and watching him grow and watching your actual friendship? What was that like?
- [28:03]
Steve Williams
Yeah, like when you carry professional golfer. It's something I learned way back in my early time. Counting for Greg Norman is that, you know, you, to work for somebody you've got, you have to become. Well, you not have to, you become friends because when you, when you cave somebody, you spend more time with that person than anybody in their lives. I mean, you know, it's an intense relationship and you know, if a guy plays 30 tournaments a year, that's, you know, and every torment is, you know, is a six day, you know, you're together for six days. Tuesday, Wednesday, practice, the tournaments, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And then outside of that, there's a lot of weeks you spend with the player where they're practicing just, you know, at their, at their local golf course or their home or whatever. So you become friends. But you've got to be able to separate that when you go to the golf course and that, that you're the caddy and you're working for this guy and he's the boss and, and you got to separate that. So it's a very fickle sign kind of thing to, to break down how that works. But you, you, you ultimately you can't get too close to the player because you've got to make some very big decisions and you've got to make some big calls and say some things at times that if you become too friendly, perhaps you won't say that sort of thing. So yeah, it's the caddy, player, caddy relationship is very unique one in sport. You know, you, you, you, you're part of the game. You're in the game, you're on the field of play, you're up close and, and you, you know, you provide a lot of information, give a lot of advice and ultimately provide some advice that can be very beneficial to the player.
- [29:47]
Sean
Can you give an example of sometimes a time maybe that you had to say something that you may not wouldn't have if you got too fr.
- [29:58]
Steve Williams
You know, it's funny, I came for Tiger for 13 years in that and you know, we only ever had one dust up in that 13 years and only one which is probably pretty unique. Yeah. And, and the reason for being is because you've got two guys here that are ultimately chasing one, one ultimate goal and two people that have the utmost respect for each other. And, and you know, I got to the point where, you know, I could read Tiger like a book as, as they say. And he was the same with me. He would know what's coming next and sort of thing. But anyway, one particular golf tournament that was at the Masters, and Tiger was in contention for the tournament. And in, in the morning, prior to every round, you go out and have a look at. There's a few holes at a gust. You need to know where the TE is located, where the hole's located. And I would relay that information on the practice tee. Just say, hey, Tiger, the, you know, the par three tee on the fourth hole, you need to know, you know, he likes to know where that is. And, and the third hole. Anyway, in the path for the short third hole on this particular year, that put the tee down close to the front of the tee, which made it very possible to drive the green. And when we got to the hole, Tiger part the first hole birded. The second hole is right at contention. And the third hole, you got, you know, you just got to hit a driver. There's a chance you could possibly difficult to actually put it on the green, but you can get it very, very close around the green that there is a chance you could hit it on the green, make two, maybe a three and that. And he didn't want to hit driver. I just couldn't understand that. And I kept, you know, saying, you've got to hit driver here. You know, he had a terrible shot, absolute shot made bogey and the costume, the tournament. And he was absolutely livid. And you know, a saying that we say down under here, as he carried on like a pork chop, you know, for the next five or six, I was just, you know, uncharacter behavior, childish behaviors that the other. And then going up the ninth hole, I actually let it rip. Just gave an absolute drill of a complete mouthful and I didn't realize the ninth hole, Augusta, there's no spectators, you know, can hear you because the first hole was over to your left hand side there. So there's no one in between. But somehow some reporter must have heard what was going on or. I don't know how, but it got into the media and it was, it was a bit of a circus when we finished. But ultimately Tiger absolutely respected that. And that was the only sort of dressing I ever gave Tiger. So, yeah, I've talked a little bit about that in the book as well.
- [32:32]
Sean
Yeah, I don't want to ruin it from people that, you know, are gonna pick up. But that's funny. Those are the things that are, that are interesting to me. Right. Because here you have two big competitors, right? And you know, when, when you're in something together and you're chasing that common goal, people don't realize, they don't understand athletes, coaches. I don't say everybody doesn't understand, but a lot of people don't understand that aggression part of it, right? Like we can be on the same side, we can be on the same team, we can be going for the same goal, have the same thoughts in mind. But there could be massive, as you would call it, dust ups from time to time because of the competitive nature. And, and there's passion there, right? There's a lot of passion.
- [33:18]
Steve Williams
Yeah. You, Sean, you can't achieve greatness without passion. I mean, they go hand in hand and that. And when there's passion, you know, these adrenaline and when there's adrenaline going, you know, things sometimes can get a little sideways than that. But you know, ultimately, ultimately, you know, you know, the guys that have the most care, that care about what they're doing, they have the passion and that, you know, I've carried for 40 something years and I've never seen a player take so much pride in what they do as Tiger did. You know, every day he walked off the golf course, he shot the best score that he could possibly shot. Never ever threw a shot away or didn't, Never ever gave up. There's so much money in professional sport, all sports and golf's no different to that. And some players get going along and that and just things aren't going good. That's all right. I go home for the weekend, come back next week, you know, sort of thing. There's just that never would ever enter Tiger's head, no matter how good or how bad if he's playing. But if he was playing poorly, he would somehow make a way to survive the cut. I mean, you know, just took so much pride in what he does and, you know, that was something, it was, you know, I took immense value out of watching just how much pride he took. And players often get played an appearance fee to go and play golf overseas off the, you know, they play on the PGA Tour and they can go and play and European tour, the Japanese tour, the Australasian Tour, Asian Tour, and you know, they get an appearance fee. And Tiger, whilst it was, you know, very greatly talked about how high his appearance fee would be whenever he went to an overseas tournament. I mean, he, he never just sort of went there and took it as a holiday. I mean, he, he, every t he played and he wanted to win, but he took so much pride and how he played in tournament where he was, you know, the guest player, the player getting paid in appearance fee. So his whole mindset was probably a little different to some of the other players or most of the other players. But, yeah, you know, as we just talking, you know, the passion you got, if you've got. If you want to be successful, you got to have some passion. You know, it's just part of it.
- [35:33]
Sean
Yeah, I mean, that's what I want the audience really take out of the. What you just said. Right. Because you could just show up or you can make every rep like it's your last. Like, this is the winning shot, you know, this is the winning phone call. If you're a salesperson, right. Or. Or whatever. It is like the most important thing that we can do every day. And this is for every professional listening, even student, you're students and you're in band or wherever it is. Listen to this very carefully. No matter what you do every single day, do not leave anything on the table. Do not go home wishing you would have done more. Do not go home wishing you would have acted differently. Never regret your effort, because you can control two things in this life. See, this is why I truly believe your attitude.
- [36:21]
Steve Williams
Yeah, that's just. That's a great. It's not. Not a lesson on life, a lesson on sport. That's just a lesson on life. You know, we all know you only get one chance in life. One. One chance at it. And, you know, if you. If you can live every day to the fullest, you know, and do everything that you set out to do every day and that you'll always be successful, you know, like, there's a lot of. I've watched a lot of players over the years that play on this PJ Tour. You've got some guys that have got an unbelievable amount of talent, that are incredibly good players. Their work ethic is not what the top of the players at the top of the tree are. Then you've got players that don't have a lot of ability, natural ability, and they work at it incredibly hard, and they work to compete against the best players in the world. Now, you take your hat off to those guys, but, you know, in sport. There's become so much money in sport, and golfers, you know, quickly caught up to the other sports here in the last couple of years as far as what the, you know, the prize purses are and things that the money's, you know, getting right up there. And ultimately, you know, I know there are A lot of players that are incredibly good players, but because of the money they make, they just don't have that work ethic that they probably should have because it becomes natural to them, and they make great money. And that's where another thing, where Tiger separated himself from that. You know, here's a guy that's playing golf. He's the greatest player that's ever played the game. He's made more money than any other athlete playing or any other athlete, not just golf, but any other athlete. And he's just. That didn't take anything away from that sole goal of trying to, you know, equal or if not past Jack's, you know, record that nothing, you know, and, you know, money can do that to a lot of people that. But, yeah, so, you know, like Tiger, he's earned everything that he's, you know, that he's achieved, and that's hard work and graft.
- [38:29]
Sean
That, to me, is just having a standard. You know, it's a standard. Like, you have to have standards. And if your standard is that, then, like you said, like, it can't change you. Like, the money is just, you know, a root cause of your greatness and everything you're putting in. Right. That's cool to have. But what legacy do you want to live, right? You want to leave a legacy of, like, that guy or that girl did everything we could every single day, and there was nothing that they took for granted.
- [39:03]
Steve Williams
Yeah, well, that's exactly right. And that's what. That's where you question yourself. You ask yourself, what is your ultimate goal and what is your legacy? And, yeah, of course, you know, you're fully on to everybody's. There's been so much debate here in the last couple of years over the live Tour, and that, you know, is it good? Is it not good? What. Everybody's got their own opinion on that. But ultimately, if you're a professional golfer and you go and play on your live tour, on. On the live tour, you're probably not worrying too much about your legacy, would be my belief. Because if I said to anybody who's one of the most lived tour events or who won this live Tour event, people don't remember that, you know, the PGA Tour, that's the tour that everybody aspires to play on. Whether you grow up playing golf and, you know, whatever part of the world you grow up playing golf on, you want to play on the PGA Tour, compete against the best players in the world on the PGA Tour, and that's where you're going to leave an Incredible legacy. And you know, you look at the likes of, you know, the greatest players that have played the game, you know, Jack Nicklaus, your Lee Trevino, your Arnold Palmer, your Gary players, your Byron Nelson's, your Ben Hogans that look at their legacy and look what it means. So, yeah, and Tiger, you know, he, you know, when he had such a lofty goal that he was trying to achieve, you know, his legacy just gets built along the way as he's trying to do that. You know, ultimately it becomes an incredible legacy. But while he's doing it, he probably doesn't realize the legacy he's building because he's so focused on, on one thing and one thing only.
- [40:41]
Sean
And yeah, there it is there. So that, that's what that right there. Right. That's what I want people to take at it as well. Like when you are intent in your purpose and you're in the work, you're doing the work, you're not worried about building the legacy, you're worried about working on your skills, performing on the golf course and everything else comes as a product of that. And so if you, if it will reverse. Right. Because I think at some point in life, most people can work the other way around. I know I have. Right? Yeah. Before my show started to really grow, I was focused on a bunch of other things and not worry about all the intricate details of becoming a better listener, being a better communicator and all those things that would make my show really good. I wanted this, I had it mixed up, man. But the moment I started working on the other things, the foundational things that were going to build me, that's when everything started to take off. So that's when you start getting the results, is when you focus on, I always call it that journey. Right. The journey in between that, that's the failure, that's the heartbreak, that's the tears, that's the frustration, that's the anger. And if we harness all of those emotions and continue to stay steadfast and the discipline in our work, that goal ends up being hit. Because you are focused on the little things.
- [42:08]
Steve Williams
Yeah. Like 100 that year. If, if you continue on the track that you set yourself and don't, don't go off the track and that and your legacy will just follow behind you. You know, it's not something you have to try and build, something you have to do, something you have to put in place. It's a foundation that you're building because you ultimately, the way that you're competing and your desire and everything to get to where you want to go. It's look, I mean, in, in sport and, and particularly professional golf and that, you know, if you look at, there's so many great players in that, but to, to achieve greatness, you got to work hard. Nothing is given to you. And there are so many great players that play the game of golf, and there's so many great players on the fringes that are looking to get onto the PGA Tour and that. So, you know, it's the ultimate. A guy like Tiger, you know, he was just the ultimate warrior, the ultimate competitor, and there's so many traits that you got to admire him. When you look at when a guy wins a tournament, you know, the next week, often the guy that's won the tournament and he's playing the next week, his performance would be subpar, you know, of what you'd expect. You know, Tiger ultimately so many times win a tournament, then win the next tournament and even win the next tournament. You know, every time that the, the, the week was finished, you know, it's a new go, it's a new week, new goal. You know, that. That's, that's finished, that's done. I'm, I'm going to get better next week. You know, like just the continued, continued drive to get better. And whatever you do ultimately can lead you to being a very, very successful, whether it be a business person, sports person, whatever it could be. And it's just, you know, that, that continual work ethic, you can't replace hard work and dedication for anything. And you can't go out and buy that. You can only do it.
- [44:02]
Sean
So true, man. So true. It's like having equivalent of a short memory, Right. It's like you want to forget the win as quickly as possible, Right. Because you want to move forward and continue to get better. And if there's a loss or adversity, you know, especially in sports and even in life, I mean, obviously, like you don't want as well on that pass. You want to have a short memory and move on and understand these two moments here are not connected. So we got to stay disciplined in between those moments so then we can go perform. And that's what the greats do. That's what Tiger days all, you know, that's what you're doing.
- [44:36]
Steve Williams
Yeah. When you all, all the events that you didn't do well at, like every, every week, at the end of every week or start of the next week and that we would go over the weeks performance before, you know, okay, what was missing from last week you know, I was huge on statistics, kept every possible note that you could possibly take. This is even before statistics were available. And. And I would compile my own statistics a little differently to how natural statistics would be taken. But. And I talk about that in the book as well. But, you know, you take. You just take a lot of notes and everything that. But it's also very important to, you know, like, when you don't do well, why didn't I do well? You know, what was. What were the reasons? And then you take that, and so you prevent poor performances. Is there a common theme when I have a poor week? What is. It's made a poor week in that. So over a period of time, you can avoid having very, very poor performances because you actually identify what it is that causes those performances and that. So, you know, in golf, the players that play at the highest level, ultimately, they're trying to win major championships. And to be able to do that, you've got to peak for those tournaments and that. And that's a very hard thing to do because some guys, you know, might peak the week before, the week after. You know, we. By peaking, it's. It's playing at your absolute best. And Tiger found a recipe doing that just based upon tournaments who play leading up to it, how much rest he needed up to it, the practice that would go and leading into the major championship. You know, he put that recipe together better than anybody else has done. So each time he played in majors, he was a contender for most of the time and ultimately won more than anybody else in his era. So, you know, there's a. Along with all the hard work and dedication and practice go, there's also going to be a lot of, you know, sitting down and identifying a lot of things in that, you know, when it's going really well, you know, how is it that I'm going really well? What am I doing? What am I feeling? How's my body working? And when I'm not going well, why aren't I playing well? Is my body not feeling good? You know, what am I doing differently? And then you keep all these kind of things there so you can get on a, you know, in sport, you can get on a roll and keep going because you. You've got to, you know, you've actually got a package that tells you, okay, this is what I do when I. And yeah, that's. Yeah. So when I was working for Tiger, I just kept comprehensive notes to even to the point where I was writing down on that, you know, what mood he was in. When he got to the golf course. What, what, what sort of pace was he walking at? You know, if he's on edge and that he'd be walking very quickly if he's not, if he's very comfortable in his own shoes, he's arriving at the golf course knowing he's probably going to have a good day, feels good about everything, he's walking at a slower pace, all this kind of thing. So, you know, in the end, you have so much information that you can, you know, you can put it, put it all together.
- [47:28]
Sean
I love that speedback, right? This, this mathematical equation almost, right? If he shows up like this, he's feeling like this, then you can rewind. Okay. If you're feeling, you know, now your element, you're walking fast or your high stress or whatever, what happened, you know, you can boil down to, are you hydrated? What did you eat last night, how well did you sleep? Was there anything else that happened? Right. So that you can get rid of those other components that may contribute to that mental state? I think it's super important because I, I think everybody should be looking at that. You don't have to be a professional athlete to look at that. You get. I had a really bad meeting this morning. Okay, well, walk me through your morning. Right. Let's identify what the breakdown was. Maybe you and your kids had a rough day. Getting ready for school put you in a bad mindset. You didn't flush it. Like this feedback we have in our life is there for a reason. So those, those moments where you and Tyler sit down and talk about the leap, the things that went well, the things that went bad. Like, in order to be great at anything, you have to be willing to look at the things that didn't go well under a bigger microscope. You have to pay more attention to that because if we alleviate those things and keep these other things the same, then we progress at a greater rate.
- [48:47]
Steve Williams
Yeah. 100. You, you, you've got to work out, you know, how you can accelerate at the quickest rate. And, and, and, and, you know, you've got a graph and you want to go, you know, there's always going to be, you know, the graph's never going to keep going straight up. It's always going to have dips and highs and lows in it. But as long as you can identify when those lows were and when, you know, like, so forth. And you, you know, you, you in sport, you, you know, like, it's only possible to win so many tournaments that, so, you know, like, A guy like Tiger, a week, for him, a successful week is only a win and nothing else. So some guys are happy with the top five, top 10, top 20, just making the cut. Some guys are happy to make the cut and, you know, get a check and go down the road to the next tournament. Tiger, the only success, measure of a success for him was a win. And, you know, you work alongside a guy like that, it's incredible. You know, like I, you know, when I look back now, and particularly when I wrote the, wrote the book and spent a lot of time sitting down writing the book and thinking about it, I didn't probably understand how much pressure I was under myself in that, because this is a guy that only wants to win. And, you know, if he finishes second, well, that's not a good week. And only a win is a successful week. And you can only, you know, like, some win. Some years you might win three tournaments, and in his case, you know, there was years where he won over 10 dormants. So, but for him, you know, it was all about winning and, and, and winning major championships. So a couple of those years there where he didn't win a major championship, they were incredibly stressful times. And each time, you know, when it went to one major, onto the next one, next one, not winning, you know, there's a lot of pressure there. And, you know, I, I, I sort of talk about that in the book as well, so that the reader will get a, you know, very, like I said, a very backstage pass to arguably that we would think was probably the best, you know, the best sustained period.
- [50:41]
Sean
Of golf played by anybody, 1000% and Zapit, right? We do. I don't think there's any denying that, you know, listening to that, it's funny because you suddenly feel bad for my wife and my team, right? Because, you know, we have statistics, we have rankings categories and in podcasting and all that kind of stuff, right? And I could be number six, number five, number three. I'm pissed. I'm not winning, right? And, and I think it takes special person to understand that, right? It's like, for me, it's like, that's not number one. Like, we are not done, we are not finished until we get there and we stay there, right? I know I'm momentary dips, but we need to get there. We need to stay there for a long period of time. And that to me, is when it comes. But it also gets the level of everybody else to rise up to understand, okay, where everything's great, we love or we love what we're doing, but at the same time, we are not done. We are not able to continue pushing to get to that spot. And again, we're talking about greatness here.
- [51:46]
Steve Williams
Does it say anything, Elon? Yeah. You know, one of the things I get asked the most about and people. One of the things that are intrigued the most about Tiger is during his time playing at the highest level, he went through numerous coaches, you know, which surprised a lot of people that, you know, you'd play so well with, you know, with one coach, and then you'd move on to another coach and then on to another coach. Why? Why would you do that sort of thing? Well, Tiger just absolutely was always searching for perfection, you know, no matter how good he was. And, you know, throughout 95% of the time, that was coming from. He's number one player in the world. So he's, you know, he was the dominant player, but he can. You can always get better. No matter how good you play, how good you are, you can always get better. And Tiger was always open to listening to, you know, different theories on the golf swing, different theories on how you can play. And ultimately, he always believed he could get better. And that was incredibly unique to watch that somebody as great as he was playing, as dominant as he was, and he still believed that he could get better. And in that time that it came from, you know, he worked under three different coaches, and, you know, ultimately, each time he changed coaches, he met. He might have had a little bit of a downward spiral for a little bit, but ultimately, he knew through hard work and everything that he believed in this coach brought to the table that he was going to get better. You know, incredible mindset to do that. You know, when you're very, very, very few athletes, when they get to the very pinnacle of their sport would think, you know what? I can get better. And then to do that, I've got to take a step backwards. I've got to rebuild my swing. And when you introduce some new swing changes, that in golf, you know, they don't happen overnight. It might be, you know, three weeks, three months, or even longer. You know, it takes a long time to introduce some new swing thoughts and that. And, you know, he. He did that. I mean, incredible. So he was never, ever going to get complacent. And. And, you know, a lot. A lot of people, in the end, they. They get complacent. And there's many reasons why you get complacent that. But he never, ever got complacent. He never took his foot off the gas he just kept working and he, you know, ultimately always believed you can improve. No matter how good you are, you can always get better. And that, that's, you know, that that's like you say, you know, you get to number one, you can't get complacent because somebody else is going to tip you off the scale. If you're at the top of the tree, you've got to stay at the top of tree. And, and you've got to, you can't be complacent. You've got to get better and better and better. And no matter what you do in life, how you go about it, you can, you can always get better.
- [54:22]
Sean
It's funny now, as we, you know, wind, you know, land the playing here like this, this last part of this conversation, so valuable from the audience here, because I don't care who you are. Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Barry Bonds, Roger Federer, doesn't matter. You can always get better. So if you're sitting there right now thinking you're, you're comfortable, you're doing well at your job, you're dealing well with certain things, you're the greatest husband ever, greatest father ever, or wife or mother, everything can be improved. You could. There's always another level of you that you can achieve by becoming greater and greater. The job's never done. We're never done developing right. We're growing constantly. I just think it's super important. Remember, you realize that the people that you are watching on tv like Tiger woods was never satisfied. I'm not saying he wasn't grateful. There's a big misconception there. With people that are great, why can't they just be grateful with where they're at? They are, but they're also not satisfying. There's more for them to do, and it keeps giving them purpose to, to reinvent themselves constantly. Even with a golf swing or a new strategy, it's super important because we're proving to ourselves constantly that we can start over from scratch and still do it again. And I think that right there is a message to greatness. It's the message to anything that is spectacular in life. You're never done. You must get back.
- [55:52]
Steve Williams
Yeah. 100. If you, if you just write down, you know, 10 of your core values, what you know, your things that you'd like. You know, you say your happiness, your fitness, your diet, you know, your work, you know, all the different things, your work ethic, the time you put into things, at the end of the day, can you go through and give yourself a 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. You'll never be able to do whatever, however you want to rate yourself and all the different things that you want to write yourself on. Is there ever a day you can say 10? You know, did I eat exactly what I should have eaten today? Was I happy all day today? Did I work as hard as I could today? You know, all the different things. There's never a day that you can. You'll be able to never have a day where you did everything to 100% so you can always improve. And that's where in professional sports and that you can, you know, like, the guys that get good, you know, they always can. They always strive to get better and better and better. And you know, that, that. That in itself, the journey of working hard and trying to get better, no matter what you do, if you enjoy that journey, enjoy that process, you may not get there, but certainly if you. If you enjoy it, it's a great journey and you put yourself in a great position to do better.
- [57:05]
Sean
Yeah. Well said, man. Well said. See, thank you so much for spending your morning with me. I really enjoyed speaking with you and I. And you gave a ton of value to the audience. You know, we talk a lot about the book. The greatness of Tiger Wood is the mindset, the. The pursuit of greatness through discipline and determination. All the things that no matter who you are or what you do in this world, on this planet, you can implement it to your life and. And be great as well. So I. I appreciate you, my friend. It was. It was an amazing conversation. And, you know, just. Thanks, man, but that was awesome.
- [57:46]
Steve Williams
Yeah. Oh, good. Great. Great. Sean. Yeah. Like I said, I hope the reader enjoys the book. Evan and I, who I did the book with, we. We were extremely pleased how it came out, and we think the reader will get a, you know, like a really true understanding of what made such a great champion in Tiger woods and arguably the greatest player that we're ever going to see. Thanks for having us on your show.
- [58:07]
Sean
He's the greatest. I don't care. 15 to 18. I don't care. Tiger woods, he's a go. So for you guys listening, watching, I want to thank you so much. Share this with somebody you know, love and trust, and tell us everything we love about the episode. Keep coming back every Monday, every Friday. And until next time, stay a turn.
- [58:28]
Luck
Sharp.
- [58:29]
Steve Williams
French.
- [58:29]
Luck
What up? This one. Luck. I let the pain inspire me. I put my all in. Everything I'm doing up until it's done, I'm me for the entirety I put in no time I'll be working Just know I'mma go for mine cause I earned it they watch and I know it's time I confirmed it the whole society determined, determined. Kick off summer with Memorial Day savings at Lowe's right now. Get five Scott's Naturescapes one and a half cubic foot mulch bags for just $10. Plus get up to 40% off select major appliances and save an extra $50 on every $500 you spend on select major appliances. $396 or more low Lowe's we help you Save valid through 528 Mold Shopper excludes Alaska and Hawaii. Selection varies by location while supplies last. Seelows.com for more details.