Tiger leaving the Tour

Exactly. Stephen Ames is particularly happy about this news!

 

Sweden's cold this time of year. Unless Tiger is back in Florida by mid-February, he's unlikely to be in Georgia in April.

The upside, if there is one, is a good rest for his knees. (No body parts spinoffs, please.)

What the hell are they going to do in Sweden? The kids aren't even old enough for Lego's. I'll say this--it must be a good place to cuddle. Good luck to 'em.

 

It's also quite dark most of the day this time of year.

 

Stevie has enough money that he doesn't have to earn another dime the rest of life (assuming Antoine Walker isn't the one handling his money). Williams is a caddy and makes more dough than 95% of the players on tour.

 

So thinking about how much money Steve Williams makes made me curious so I did the homework. The results are mind-boggling:

Typically, caddies make 10% of what their player earns in prize money. A top 10 finish usually garners about 15% and a win can be as much as 20%. (We all know Tiger's reputation for being a cheapskate with tips but for the sake of argument we'll say he and Stevie use this same standard).

In 2009, Tiger had 9 finishes in the top 10 that were not wins and made $3,530,163 off those. Stevie's cut of that is $529,524.

Tiger had 6 wins totaling $5,828,000. Stevie's cut of that is $1,165,600.

Tiger had 2 tournaments where he made the cut but did not finish in the top 10, totaling $260,000. Stevie's cut is $26,000.

So William's final number for 2009 is in the ballpark of $1,721,124.

That total would've placed him 49th on the money list, right between Chad Campbell and Pat Perez. A total of 258 players earned money on the tour this year so while my estimation of Stevie making more than 95% of tour players was off, it wasn't by much. Williams made more than 82% of the players last year.

The tour average was $982,478, which Williams nearly doubled.

Add his endorsement deals on top of that (by the way, any other caddies have endorsement deals??).

Also add in the fact that Tiger only played 17 events -- only 16 of which earned him prize money (Presidents Cup was the exception there). And he did not win any majors, which pay out much more.

It'd be interesting to do the math for one of Tiger's really monster years.

If you need me, I'll be trolling the parking lot at tour stops looking for a caddy job.

 

Don't most golfers also have to pay their own expenses while on tour?

I'm guessing a caddie's expenses are picked up.

 

My understanding is that Tiger does
not pay the going rate ("Hey! Be a Yankee, and get all those World Series checks!"). This still leaves
Williams far from destitute. Correct me, if I'm wrong.

 

Yeah I'm not sure who pays for a caddies expenses. Could be a player-by-player basis.

Any golf fan who hasn't read Alan Shipnuck's book "Bud, Sweat and Tees" I highly suggest you get reading. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

 

Yeah Tiger is known for being a lousy tipper so his numbers with Williams might be trimmed down a bit.

It's interesting to note that Williams was set on retiring from caddying until he got a call from Tiger one day asking him to take over his bag. Williams thought it was a prank call so he hung up. Tiger called right back.

Crazy to think how much that phone call changed Stevie's life.

 

First of all, there's SO much more to caddying than carrying a bag. A player's success relies heavily on his caddy. A caddy is basically like a coach. That's like saying all a baseball manager does is scratch his ass.

Second of all, a huge number of people -- pro athletes, music entertainers, etc -- "make all that cash and have the entire world think of you as a thug and a jackass."

 

And, they couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks of them, either. There's no need. Money is power, and freedom, and all that, when it is handled well.

 

Thanks for that. I'm gonna go kill myself now, but not before I holler at my Dad for not pushing me to caddy at the local CC in high school.