After retiring in 2017 to step away from the exhausting tour grind, Steve Williams is stepping back inside the ropes with renewed purpose. At 62, he’s teaming up with rising talent Anthony Quayle, and their partnership will debut at the opening event of the DP World Tour season. But this sparks an old memory of him when he fired his pro, Mike Clayton.

It was a moment that revealed the fearless edge he’d later carry onto the biggest stages in golf. At just 20, before he ever carried Tiger Woods’ bag, Williams shocked the tour by firing the very pro he worked for, convinced he was meant for bigger challenges.

Back in 1984, a 20-year-old Williams found himself walking the fairway alongside a pro, Mike Clayton. After a week of working for the pro and even helping him to a rare European Tour win, Williams dropped the bomb: he fired him. That moment marked the end of ‘just another caddy’ and the start of a legend. 

Mike Clayton still remembers the intensity Steve Williams carried even as a teenager. “Steve could be a bully at times,” Clayton recalls in an interview in 2014. “He didn’t fool around. He didn’t mind making his presence felt, ‘I’m the best caddy and my man is the best player and f— off out of my road.’” It was unapologetic confidence from a 20-year-old who already knew his worth. Let’s know how it unfolded.

When Steve Williams Helped Mike Clayton And

Back then, when Clayton was preparing for a tournament in Biarritz, France, he suddenly found himself without a caddie and asked the young Williams to step in. Williams accepted but he arrived with more than just a willingness to carry a bag.

On the very first day, as Clayton loosened up on the practice fairway, Williams launched straight into critique. “I’ve watched you play a bit,” he told him. “It looks to me like you don’t concentrate particularly well. It’s because you’re not thinking about what you’re doing. No matter what happens this week, I just want you to pay attention, concentrate on every shot.”

The blunt honesty worked. Clayton went on to win, the only victory of his 311 European Tour starts across a 26-year career. Impressed, he hired Williams for the rest of the season, even doubling the usual rate: £200 a week. “He was terrific,” Clayton admits.

And then came the twist that defined Williams’ audacious early reputation. At the end of that same year, Steve Williams fired him. A 20-year-old caddie letting go of the pro he had just helped turn into a winner.

What do you think of Williams' honesty? Let us know in the comments below!

Written by

Dolly Bhamrick

Edited by

Siddharth Shirwadkar