ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- Adam Scott stood on the 17th tee box of the Old Course on Friday holding a yardage book in his right hand, staring into a stiff breeze, looking pensive as he tried to visualize how to hit one of most difficult shots in all of major championship golf.
He turned to his caddie, Steve Williams, and mentioned he was planning to take an aggressive line over the Old Course Hotel, starting the ball dangerously to the right and asking the wind to help it draw back toward the center of the Road Hole's skinny fairway. If he hit it poorly, both men knew, the ball could go out of bounds, a disaster that would certainly mar an otherwise wonderful round. But if he hit it pure, Scott would almost certainly make par, maybe even birdie.
The words "OLD COURSE HOTEL" are stenciled into the side of the green building, and Scott planned to start his shot so that it passed right over the L in hotel. Did Williams agree with the line?
"Absolutely, mate," Williams said, handing Scott his driver. "Ab-so-lutely."
Scott -- whose swing is as picturesque and technically elegant as anyone's since Ben Hogan or Sam Snead -- hammered his drive, then held his finish, the club wrapping around his body so that his elbows formed perfect right angles. Fans craned their necks to follow the flight, then an anxious murmur rippled through the crowd. Many seemed convinced he'd just committed a ruinous mistake.
Scott, though, turned to Williams and grinned, just as the wind and the spin began bending the ball back into play. It landed softly on the right half of the fairway, 287 yards away.
"I hit it so pure," Scott said. "They might have been worried, but I was sure it was fine."
The 17th turned out to be an excellent window into Scott's round (he ended up shooting 67) and into his relationship with Williams, who is back on Scott's bag after a brief retirement. After more intense encouragement from Williams over where he needed to land the ball with his second shot ("Remember, 170 is the number. It's perfect," Williams said) Scott followed up his beautiful drive with a low, boring 4-iron that powered through the wind and skipped softly up the bank in front of the green, stopping 10 feet from the hole.
"We've probably been in more discussion here for two days than we normally are at any other course," Scott said. "One of [Williams'] great attributes is [he] gets a great feel for the moment and feel for the shots. He's obviously seen a lot of great shots around here."
Scott left his birdie putt hanging on the lip of the cup, but on a hole where the field was averaging 4.7 strokes for the week, a tap-in par was almost as satisfying. He was still glowing about his approach 20 minutes after his round was over, even after he drove it a yard from the green on 18 and birdied the hole to climb into a tie for fifth place at 7 under par.
"Maybe one of the best shots I've ever played into 17," Scott said. "A very pleasing shot."
Scott, 35, always believed he had the talent to win majors, but little stuff -- mental errors or nervous swings in big moments -- always seemed to hold him back throughout his 20s and early 30s. He never made it over the hump until he teamed up with Williams, who'd previously spent 13 years as Tiger Woods' caddie, and helped Woods win 13 of his 14 majors.
The Aussie nearly won the Open Championship in 2012 with Williams on the bag, but the duo didn't trust one another fully at that point in their relationship, and it showed when Scott bogeyed the last four holes of the tournament and finished second to Ernie Els at Royal Lytham. Scott admitted he and Williams didn't speak for several days after the tournament, each of them needing some time to cool off since they were still second-guessing the decision to hit 3-wood off the tee on the 18th hole, a shot that ended up in a pot bunker and likely kept Scott out of a playoff.
"That really did hurt," Scott said. "But I was so happy with the way I played generally that week. I just wanted another crack at it."
The following season, Scott and Williams' rapport was much smoother, their bond much stronger, and the Australian finally did break through in a major, winning the Masters in a playoff. Scott ascended to No. 1 in the world later that year, and stayed there for 11 weeks before Rory McIlroy dethroned him in a stretch of dominant play.
Still, it looked like, in Williams, Scott had found the right man to reassure him in tense moments. "He lays it right out for you, and you have to like it or not," Scott said.
But Williams -- who turned 51 in 2014 and had been caddying professionally since he was 16 -- soon told Scott he'd grown weary and worn down after so many years of travel. He wanted to put golf in his rearview mirror and retire to his home in New Zealand, to see more of his wife, Kristy, and his son, Jett. Scott was disappointed, but at the time he felt comfortable moving on, convinced his game was now in a good place.
After all, it's the player who hits the shot, right? How valuable can a caddie be, exactly?
"We checked in with each other every so often and stayed in touch, but everyone is busy, and it wasn't like I was calling him every day," Scott said.
Williams says he was convinced his retirement would be permanent. He watched Jett play rugby, he chopped wood in his yard, and he stopped paying attention to golf entirely. "I couldn't tell you one thing [Scott] did," Williams said. "I don't watch golf. Never have, never will."
Scott started working with Mike Kerr, who'd previously caddied for Els and Lee Westwood, and felt confident the relationship would work. He knew there might be some rough patches -- he was also trying to transition to a short putter, with a ban on anchored putting coming in 2016 -- but he didn't expect them to be quite so rough. After missing two straight cuts and finishing in a tie for 24th in the first three tournaments of 2015, he swallowed his pride and called Williams.
"I was begging and pleading," Scott said, trying to hide a smile. "Unfortunately, I have to admit that. He certainly knows how to get the best golf out of me on the golf course. I don't really want to say how great he is, but I did butter him up a little bit. One of the things I kind of learned from guys like Steve is if you don't ask, you'll never get. I thought I'd take a shot and give him a call even though he was adamant he wasn't coming out."
Williams didn't want the job on a full-time basis. He has agreed, at least for now, to be on Scott's bag only for the summer, and not beyond that. It did help, Williams conceded, that he'd be returning to a venue where he twice helped Woods lift the Claret Jug, in 2000 and 2005.
"Look, if the Open Championship wasn't at St. Andrews this year, it wouldn't have been as easy to persuade me," Williams said. "This is a great place."
Just how important caddies are in the grand scheme remains a subject of fierce debate for fans outside the ropes and watching on television. For years, people joked that Woods could have won 10 majors carrying his own bag. But there is little debate within the golfing world over how much a great caddie is worth. Before he teed off in the second round, Jordan Spieth walked over to Williams while he was being interviewed by the media and offered a congratulatory fist bump for Scott's round. "Good job today, guy," Spieth said.
Just how long Williams is on Scott's bag remains to be seen. But he's clearly taking the job as seriously as he ever did. At 5:30 a.m., Williams was already out of bed and walking the Old Course on Friday, trudging through torrential rains for an hour so he could mark where the pin positions were going to be, and he and Scott could plot a strategy for Round 2.
"You could hardly walk, it was raining so hard," Williams said. "It was blowing and raining that hard. I was soaked. There was only one other caddie who was silly enough to be out there."