That’s not golf…

“Remember the time when my caddy called you a prick? Happy days.”

At a recent charity event in New Zealand, Tiger’s caddy, Steve Williams, revealed that he has no love for Phil Mickelson:

“I wouldn’t call Mickelson a great player, ’cause I hate the prick.”

Williams also related this Mickelson-flavoured anecdote at the event:

“It’s also a well-known fact that Woods and American Phil “Mr Nice Guy” Mickelson are not the best of buddies. Williams told a story of Woods and Mickelson paired together during the US Open. The pair were duelling for the lead in the third round. Tiger waved to a packed grandstand seating 5,000 people that bordered the 17th fairway. The crowd responded.

As a hush fell back over the crowd, a fan yelled out ‘Phil!’ No response from Mickelson. Again the fan yelled out ‘Phil!’ Again no response. The fan changed tack. ‘Hey, Mr Mickelson.’

When Mickelson turned and waved, the fan yelled out ‘Nice tits!’ The crowd erupted in laughter; Mickelson went double bogey, bogey and his tournament was over.”

[Fanhouse]

Funny, but not necessarily true. In fact, Mickelson denied this ever happened. He also responded to Williams with this barbed comment:

“After seeing Steve Williams’ comments all I could think of was how lucky I am to have a class act like Bones (his caddie, Jim Mackay) on my bag and representing me.”

Good comeback, Phil. Sarcasm rules, especially when used from the moral high ground.

And how has Tiger reacted to this war of words between the man on his bag and his biggest rival? He issued the following statement:

“I was disappointed to read the comments attributed to Steve Williams about Phil Mickelson, a player that I respect. It was inappropriate. The matter has been discussed and dealt with.”

The matter may have been “dealt with”, but there’s no doubt that Woods detests such publicity. Tiger has already fired one caddy, Fluff Cowan, for getting to cosy with the media, and although his relationship with Williams is stronger, he is not sentimental and would sack Williams in a second if he thought the Tiger Woods brand was being sullied.

Phil does have nice tits though.