Steve WilliamsStew Milne
One could use many words to describe Steve Williams's remark during a caddies' party the evening after the second round of the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Williams, of course, caddied for Tiger Woods for 12 years, and 13 of his 14 majors. An award for the "Best Celebration of the Year" by a caddie was presented to him at the private, off the record party. Williams had told CBS that he had just enjoyed the best week of his life when his new employer Adam Scott won the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, last August; and he said so with heat and heart, if not head. Woods had dismissed him two weeks before; their relationship had been souring.
At the caddies' party, Williams said this about his intent in the CBS interview: "It was my aim to shove it up that black a……"
Here are a few words to describe what Williams said: Stupid beyond belief; abhorrent for the racism implicit in his use of the word "black;" arrogant; ugly; mind-snapping. What was he thinking? Did he think he was being funny and light? The evening was apparently meant to be all about being funny and light.
Williams couldn't have been thinking, even if the evening, which caddies, players, families, and some media members attended, was supposed to be off the record. But his remark was so offensive that it was justified for the comment to be made public. Writer Alex Miceli, who is in Shanghai, wrote that the British reporters who went with the story first discussed whether they should do so over a three-hour period. They were having dinner at a nearby restaurant when they learned what Williams said. They weren't at the party, and they believe the remark was bound to come out. So they acted.
As soon as the news became public, there were widespread calls for the PGA Tour and the European Tour to suspend Williams from caddying. PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem and European Tour chief executive George O'Grady have responded by only censuring and not revoking Williams's role as a caddy. Finchem and O'Grady said they were speaking for the International Federation of PGA Tours when they acknowledged an apology that Williams made on his website, and added that they considered the matter closed.
The apology that Williams made came at Scott's request. He wrote that he could see how his remarks "could be construed as racist," but added that wasn't his intent.
Maybe he would have apologized so on his own once he realized what had come out of his mouth, but then again, maybe not. Meanwhile, there have been widespread calls for Scott to dismiss Williams. Scott is supposed to play with Woods when the Australian Open starts Nov. 10th in Sydney, and it's possible that the golfers could meet during matches at the Presidents Cup the following week in Melbourne.
This story won't go away, given the high-profile people involved and the nature of Williams's remark. He obviously feels intensely angry with Woods for dismissing him. His bile is apparent in his comments in both Akron and Shanghai.
Because the story won't go away, Williams should take some responsibility and withdraw from caddying in both the Australian Open and the Presidents Cup. If he's on Scott's bag, the focus is sure to be on the situation that he's created. The attention should be on what promises to be two fascinating weeks of golf, not on an incident that, while caused by Williams alone, puts one in mind of the racism with which golf has been tainted for years.
Williams should get out of Dodge, and now. It's time for a leave of absence, now that he's taken leave of good sense.
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Lorne Rubenstein has written a golf column for The Globe and Mail since 1980. He has played golf since the early 1960s and was the Royal Canadian Golf Association's first curator of its museum and library at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario and the first editor of Score, Canada's Golf Magazine, where he continues to write a column and features. He has won four first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America, one National Magazine Award in Canada, and, most recently, he won the award for the best feature in 2009 from the Golf Journalists Association of Canada. Lorne has written 11 books, including The Natural Golf Swing, with George Knudson (1988); Links: An Insider's Tour Through the World of Golf (1990); The Swing, with Nick Price (1997); The Fundamentals of Hogan, with David Leadbetter (2000); A Season in Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands (2001); Mike Weir: The Road to the Masters (2003); A Disorderly Compendium of Golf, with Jeff Neuman (2006); and his latest, This Round's on Me (2009). He is a member of the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Lorne can be reached at rube@sympatico.ca . You can now follow him on Twitter @lornerubenstein