Steve a visionary

Uber caddie Steve Williams gets the occasional bad rap for many reasons but you can’t argue with his golf knowledge. When you’ve seen the greats at close quarters — Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, Greg Norman, Raymond Floyd — you get to know what a good golf shot looks like. Even so, three years ago, when Williams looked into his crystal ball and came up with a player for the future, it’s fair to say not many took him seriously when he mentioned a Europe-based American with an unusual name. “Once a great while, a player comes along who hits a golf ball the way it was meant to be hit,” Williams wrote in Golf Digest in 2015. “Powerful, piercing, the perfect trajectory. Of the young players out there, one I've seen has that special ball flight: Brooks Koepka. Adam [Scott] and I were paired with him at the Open Championship last year, and from his first tee shot on, I thought, this kid is special. Obviously he's searching to find the other parts of the puzzle, but I haven't seen a ball flight like that since Tiger, and before that, Johnny Miller.” A little more than three years later, Koepka, pictured with girlfriend Jena Sims, has three major titles to his resume and is up to No 2 in the world golf rankings. And with each big trophy he hoists, Stevie is looking smarter and smarter.