A profile of Johnny Miller

We all know from his television comments with the American network NBC that Johnny Miller can speak what is spoken, but for a time, in the mid-1970s, he did too, probably better than anyone else who has stepped on a golf course.

Everyone he competed against, including Nicklaus, Watson, Weiskopf and Trevino, knew that if Miller blew up, he was invincible, and that even on a bad day he was still pretty good. Nicklaus said of him: “The player who consistently hit his short irons closer to the hole than anyone I’ve ever seen was Johnny Miller in his prime. There were parts of his game, particularly the short irons, that were better than mine.

Meanwhile, Watson, who played Miller when he shot 61 in the final round to win the 1974 Tucson Open, said, “That was the best round of pure-stroke golf I’ve ever seen.” To which Miller replied: “For the last 12 months I have played better than anyone in the world.”

And so he had, but his was a rapid and improbable rise to prominence, followed by an even quicker fall, if not to mediocrity, at least to fallible human standards.

When he was 10 years old, his older brother, with whom he was very close, drowned while swimming in the Pacific and his body was not found for several weeks. To help Johnny cope with the devastating loss, his father installed a mat in the basement where the grief-stricken boy could hit golf balls all day long if he wanted to. It paid off to such an extent that in 1966, at the age of 20, Johnny went to the US Open in San Francisco with the intention of getting some caddy work. On a whim he entered the final classification and entered the field as a player, before finishing eighth.

He then won 24 United States Tour titles, with eight of his victories in one season, 1974, and one of those victories, the Tucson Open, was by 14 strokes, against one of the strongest courses of the year. He also won two Majors, the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont, regarded as one of the toughest venues in all of America, and the 1976 Open at Royal Birkdale, where he held off a 19-year-old rookie named Seve. Crossbowmen. But it was the US Open that really made a name for himself, as he won it with a 63 final round, which is still the best last round to win a Major, and that could have been even better.

He later said, ‘So I birdie the first four, and I immediately start to feel nauseous.’ I also know exactly what is going on. I hit him at eight feet and I cut him short, right to the heart. On the eight, I hit a large 4.30 foot wood under the hole. I leave my birdie putt three feet away and then lose that one.

“ I kept hitting hard: three feet, four feet, nine feet. If Watson had been putting in for me, it could have been a 58 ‘.

Last-round or weekend charges were a Miller specialty because in addition to that memorable last day at Oakmont, his win at the 1976 Open was courtesy of a 66th fourth-round, and the year before, in one of the greatest Masters ever seen, he failed to catch Jack Nicklaus in one fell swoop, having played the weekend at 65, 66.

Miller said that serenity comes from knowing that even your worst shot will be pretty good, and for a time at its peak, if he ‘missed’ an iron shot more than a meter away from the line, he would be upset. His swing was so grooved and pure that he could hit an 8 iron, for example a 7, 8 or 9 iron distance, with some slight alterations that were almost imperceptible to spectators. This was a trick he liked to reserve for those players trying to check which club he used on a hole three. So he deliberately hit an 8-iron at a 9-iron distance, and then watched with delight as the other guy airmail the green.

During those 1973-6 glory years, Miller had it all: blonde good looks, a flair for burning, and an innate curiosity about life, golf, and people, which he has continued to display in his television work. But of all the golfing kites that have blazed in our skies, his was the brightest but shortest-lived, and as quickly as the magical talent appeared, it disappeared.

There are three main reasons. First, he suffered from yips for life, despite being as hot a putter as anyone when he was on a streak, so to compensate he simply hit his approach shots even closer to the flag. He freely admits that the reason he has only played twice in the US Tour of Champions (Seniors) is that he is still fighting the yips. So bad are they that, even in his prime, he once painted a dot on the underside of the putter grip and instead of looking at the head of the club, he stared at the dot throughout the shot.

He confesses that his worst moment was in a 1977 game against Jack Nicklaus on the television series Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf. He combined shot for shot from Nicklaus, except sadly, embarrassingly, on the greens, where he made three putts seven times. He said: ‘It was like I had a snake in my hands. I couldn’t do a meter. There’s no worse feeling than standing on a short putt, knowing you don’t have a chance to do it. ‘

Second, he says he spent a winter working on his ranch in Utah cutting down trees and when he returned to the field, his swing was gone, due to muscle buildup and loss of flexibility. He also believes that switching suits from MacGregor to Wilson in ’75 immediately set him back two points and is certainly the reason for one of his wisest advice, which is still good today, which is: ‘Once you find a set of sticks, like, stick with them until they fall apart. ‘

Third, and probably most important of all, he is a devoted family man and always felt that the cramped and obsessive world of high-end sports, with its endless suitcases and hotel rooms, was tedious and a bit unhealthy for a sane man. He was bored with the traveling lifestyle of the Golf Tour and always had much broader interests than the 72-hole tournaments. He is a committed member of the Church of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), has six children, and was bothered by being away from them for long periods when they were little.

When he transitioned to television analyst, he achieved immediate notoriety by using one of his favorite words: “strangle.” Miller confesses to being a true authority, since it is a phenomenon that he has studied with great interest throughout his life, because he believes that it has been a world-class necklace.

He says, ‘I’ve choked so many times over the years it’s a joke. For me, it wasn’t the result of a character flaw, it wasn’t a lack of courage. Choking isn’t like that at all, it’s just stress that manifests itself mentally and physically. ”

In 1990, when he made his commentary debut on the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. His good friend Peter Jacobsen faced a 225-yard shot over the water from a downhill fall on the 18th at Pebble Beach. Miller studied Jacobsen’s body language, and everything else, before saying, “This is absolutely the easiest shot to strangle I’ve ever seen.”

The comment created an immediate furor: Jacobsen refused to speak to him for five months and only relented after watching a tape of the incident, and almost before he warmed up the announcer’s chair, Miller heard loud shouts for him to be fired. Now it’s hard to imagine the hubbub; after all, he didn’t say that Jacobsen was a choker, or that he would succumb to pressure, just that the ingredients were there to make it happen. Over the next several weeks and months, Miller continued to call him what he saw it, and American television viewers began to realize that hearing an honest opinion was a refreshing change from the mild and harmless porridge they are generally served with. .

He has never had a problem and the frankness he has shown throughout his life, which he happily led to the comment booth, has earned him as many enemies as friends. But to be fair, he is not abusive or vindictive in his comments, he is just as brutally honest as he has always been and in American society, especially on television, no-nonsense is the exception rather than the rule.

His closest equivalent in sports commentary is probably John McEnroe, but Miller has an advantage even here because throughout his career his game was not only astonishingly good, but his demeanor was exemplary. So when you stop Tiger Woods, for example, for cursing loudly (and repeatedly) on the 18th tee at Pebble Beach at the US Open, he cannot be accused of hypocrisy because he was never heard cursing on a golf course. Golf. And even fewer golfers have had a greater justification for letting some epithets fly.

And Miller has remained as brutally outspoken as ever. In March 2004, Craig Parry defeated Scott Verplank in a playoff for the Doral Championship in Miami by hitting a 6-iron from 176 yards on the first extra hole. Miller said the Australian’s swing was a 15 handicap and would have made Ben Hogan throw up. Parry was so outraged that he made an official complaint to the US Tour, but Miller was unrepentant and his ability to make such comments, and then refuse to back down when they are all the rage, is probably why he remains the player. most successful American for not doing so. They have been offered the captaincy of the Ryder Cup.

And it was the Ryder Cup that got him into the most hot water. During the infamous 1999 game at Brookline. Captain Ben Crenshaw, acting “on a hunch,” chose an out-of-form Justin Leonard to accompany Hal Sutton on all four balls the second afternoon (later halving his match with Olazábal and Jiménez). Miller responded by saying, “My hunch is that Justin needs to go home and watch it on TV.” Leonard was furious and was joined by Davis Love and Jim Furyk, who said, in effect, that Miller did not believe in them and did not support the home team as he should.

Miller told them to go for a walk and pointed out that his job is not to act as an entertainer, but to offer an honest opinion. He was also outspoken in condemning the behavior of American fans, who abused Colin Montgomerie, his wife, and father, and generally behaved like a mob, and then severely criticized the American team, led by Tom Lehman, for the infamous attack across the 17th green when Justin Leonard hit a scandalous putt in his singles match again José María Olazábal.

He told Golf Digest: ‘If Tom Lehman had done what he did at the Ryder Cup 10 years ago, he would have been kicked out of the Ryder Cup for life, or at least for one Cup. He was off the charts. He was out of control. ‘

Miller was always in control, and at his pomp he was as good as anyone who has hit a golf club.

Johnny Miller in:

His own game: ‘I had a stretch there for a few years where I played a little golf that skirted the twilight zone. I can remember that he was literally bothering me because he had to putt. ‘

Colin Montgomerie: “Sometimes the guy doesn’t have a filter between his heart, his brain and his mouth, but his opinions are not bad for the game.”

Retief Goosen: It’s the worst three putt in golf history ‘(after failing to drop by two from 12 feet on the 72nd hole at the 2001 US Open; subsequently winning the playoff).

Peter Oosterhuis (1973 Masters leader after 54 holes): “He’ll probably get a good night’s sleep, all two and a half hours.”

Biggest: ‘When Jack Nickalus plays well, he wins, when he plays poorly, he is second. When he plays terribly, he’s third. ‘