Tiger Woods’ ex-caddie on whether he’d surpass Nicklaus’ record with Butch Harmon

Debates in the golf world about who is the greatest have always existed and will continue to exist. It seems, however, that the majority leans towards either Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods, with different opinions. Although it looked like Tiger would break Nicklaus’ Major record, he fell short of that feat, at least for now. 

Tiger played incredible golf with Butch Harmon, his coach, but the two parted ways in 2004. Tiger decided to find a new coach, and many believe that he made a huge mistake. 

His former caddy, Steve Williams, however, does not have such an opinion, believing that the experienced golfer was just as impressive under Hank Haney as he was under Butch Harmon.

“That’s a question that comes up a lot. I kept a lot of statistics caddying for Tiger – there are more statistics currently available than back in the early day – and my statistics would tell me that Tiger played just as good under Hank Haney as under Butch Harmon.

It’s a hypothetical question but no, I don’t think that’s a fair statement. I think that he has the ability and the determination to overcome so many different things and when you’re making a new swing change… he gives those swing changes a lot of thought and if he thinks something can be better.”– he said, as quoted by The Golfing Gazette.

Their records

Tiger Woods dominated from 1997 to 2008, but after that he experienced a huge decline in his career. Tiger won only one Major after 2008, celebrating at the Masters in 2019. There are many reasons for this, but it seems that injuries and possible saturation of success were the main reasons for this. 

An experienced golfer should have broken Nicklaus’ record a long time ago, but it’s hard to achieve such a goal when other things are not working in your favor. 

On the other hand, Nicklaus won Majors in various periods, and his last Majors title was also at the Masters in 1986. It is also the Majors that he has won the most, even 6 times.