There were a couple of brilliant performances in the weeks prior to The Masters and The Open Championship this year by Phil Mickelson and the highest-ranked player in the world, Luke Donald.

Mickelson went to Augusta as a clear favourite after winning in Houston but he never contended at a course he has won over three times and Donald came to Royal St Georges after a 19-under par week at Castle Stuart and missed the cut.

Good form coming into a big championship is a real comfort but both Mickelson and Donald must have looked back and wondered if they had played their best golf a week early.

This week at Firestone, Adam Scott began with a 62 and finished his week with a clinic of his finest ball striking that culminated with a 200-yard six iron that trickled past the edge of the cup and left him a four footer for a final birdie and a four-shot win over Donald and Rickie Fowler. Jason Day was just a single shot behind them in a fourth-place tie with Ryo Ishikawa.

Scott has always been one with a way-above-average talent but his career has in one sense been disappointing because, until Augusta this year, he has barely been more than a footnote in the major championships.

His short game was always been cited as the reason but early this year he discarded the conventional putter for one of the longer versions of a long putter and the results have been impressive. 

Of course the other change came at the US Open when he borrowed Tiger Woods' caddy Steve Williams. With Woods plagued by scandal and injury, Williams had been all but unemployed for 18 months but when Williams worked for Scott the week following Congressional at Aronimink (where the Australian finished third), Woods ended the relationship. Apparently he was upset Williams had not sought permission to continue his moonlighting for Scott and Tiger is a demander of loyalty. 

It wasn't the first time Williams has been fired by the best player in the world.

In the middle of 1989, Greg Norman gave him the ‘don't come Tuesday' call and Raymond Floyd very quickly hired him. Floyd was 49 and about to go out and dominate the Senior Tour but not before he and Williams teamed to make a playoff in the 1990 Masters with Nick Faldo. Faldo won that week but it was an amazing performance by a 50-year-old.

Norman asked Williams back a couple of years later but the Kiwi was having none of it, so free of drama was his life with Floyd.

Williams knows well the games of the men he works for and at The British Open in 1989, only weeks after Norman had let him go, he was watching Norman battle for the title with Mark Calcavecchia and Wayne Grady.

Norman birdied the opening two holes of the four-hole playoff and hit a beautiful looking long iron - he hit a few of them in his day - just over the back of the long and difficult par three 17th hole.

"Watch this," said Williams as he observed the playoff from the locker room. "He should putt this but he will take out an eight iron and chip it ten feet past. You watch."

Norman pulled the putter from the bag, took a couple of practice swings, replaced it for the eight iron and, well, you know the rest.

Woods hired Williams, with the blessing of Floyd, in the middle of 1999 and within a couple of months they won a memorable PGA Championship over Sergio Garcia.

Tiger went on to win a dozen more major championships with Williams at his side and whilst there were weeks when Tiger could have won with my mother on the bag, there were unquestionably moments when Williams made critical decisions and no man is more confident or assertive with an opinion on a choice of club or shot than the New Zealander.

"He was the only caddy I ever had who never choked," said Floyd.

Who knows whether his presence has helped Scott but this win in the Bridgestone Invitational was a startling performance and one Williams himself immediately nominated in an 18th green interview as the "best week of my caddy career". Which, given that he's been caddying for 33 years and has racked up 145 wins and 13 majors in that time, is quite a statement.

Obviously it was a very pointed dig at his ex-boss who languished back in a tie for 37th at one over par with, among others, Geoff Ogilvy.

Woods, like Norman, may come to regret letting Williams go. The former world No.1 has lost the best caddy in the game as well as handing a potential rival a man who may well prove to be an important part of the puzzle for Scott.

Williams has impressed upon Scott that he is only interested in his man contending and winning major championships and the Australian hope is that the form he showed this week carries on to Atlanta and the PGA Championship.