With his boss Tiger Woods booked in for knee reconstruction surgery, New Zealand caddie Steve Williams is out of work for the rest of the season.
Williams, who has also worked with Greg Norman and Raymond Floyd, will miss his first major championship since 1979 when next month's British Open rolls around.
Talking to ESPN.com, Williams felt that in the long run surgery would help Woods enhance his career and get him healthy again.
Williams revealed he knew his season was over moments after Woods sealed victory in the US Open on Tuesday, seeing off the dogged Rocco Mediate in a play-off.
As he rode with Woods in a golf cart to the trophy presentation Williams had a premonition there would be no more tournament golf in 2008.
"I had an inclination that a certain surgery might be required, and then Tiger told me: `We're done for the year'," he said.
Woods won while battling a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and double stress fracture in his left tibia.
For Williams, that was the highlight of a caddying career that has spanned three decades, since he moved to Europe as a 16-year-old in search of a career.
His biggest concern at the first tee was how Woods was going to walk a course that was just under 7km in length.
Williams spent most of his time encouraging Woods who, despite grimacing, did not complain he was in pain.
"I'm a bit of a fast walker and there were a few times that he told me to slow down a bit...but that was it."
On the 72nd hole on Monday, Williams made what he felt was the greatest call of his career.
Needing a birdie four to force a playoff, Woods was in thick rough about 92m from the pin after two shots.
Williams encouraging an exhausted Woods to use his 60-degree wedge, a club he usually hits about 77m, for his approach from 92m.
"While he was standing over that ball, my heart was beating pretty hard," Williams said.
"But I figured he only had one chance -- to hit that 60-degree club as hard as he could and squeeze a little more distance out of it. And that's exactly what he did. It landed just beyond the pin, had some spin on it and came right back towards the hole."
From there, Woods drained a five-metre putt, forcing the playoff against Rocco Mediate, which he won on the sudden-death 19th hole.
Afterward, as Williams and his wife raced to catch a flight, Woods called his caddie's cell phone to voice his appreciation.
"He told me a few words that I will never, ever forget," Williams said.
"It's something that I'm going to forever keep between me and Tiger, but it meant the world.
"What he said will always stick in my mind."
