Johnny Miller: No fear holding a 5 Iron or a microphone
LOS ANGELES — He never was afraid to go for the flagstick or the jugular. When Johnny Miller was holding a 5 iron you knew he would be on target. As he could be holding a microphone.
It’s mid-June, the start of another U.S. Open, the tournament that meant everything to Miller.
The tournament he thought he could win as an amateur. The tournament he did win as a young pro.
How quickly the years pass. How slowly the memories fade.
How wonderful Miller’s contributions have been to the sport where he gained fame as a hell-bent champion and later recognition as a forthright TV commentator has given him a prestigious honor.
Miller on Tuesday night, in a ceremony that caused him to tear up, was presented the Bobby Jones Award for sportsmanship, character and integrity.
Miller is 76, many years and shots distant from that 1966 Open on his home course, the Olympic Club in San Francisco.
It’s the US. Open that was best known for Arnold Palmer squandering a 7-shot lead with nine holes to play and then losing an 18-hole playoff to Billy Casper.
It’s also the Open a novice golf writer for the San Francisco Chronicle was assigned to cover Miller, a hometown kid, 19 and attending (and playing for) BYU.
Miller had learned the game by hitting balls into a canvas backstop his father, Larry, hung in the garage of their home in the Sunset District.
Seems old-fashioned decades later. Seems brilliant.
Johnny won the U.S. Junior. Johnny won on Tour. Johnny won the 1974 U.S. Open at Oakmont, closing with a 63 that for so long was the single-round low in an Open.
What I recall about that final round was how John’s wife, Linda, figuring he had no chance after three rounds, stayed with their young children at the motel. It was Birdies in his first four holes that brought her to the course.
Miller never was one for excuses. One year being locked-in competition at the Crosby with Jack Nicklaus at Pebble Beach, Miller whacked his approach into the bushes on 16.
“A perfect shank,” he affirmed later in the press room.
Nor was he one for false modesty.
Consider his words about that ’73 Open, the one Sports Illustrated headlined as “Miller’s Miracle.”
“It sort of made…,” he began, then halted. “It was one of those finishes that you just almost don't forget. Every guy that was any good at all from Palmer, Nicklaus, Player, Trevino, all the guys who were in front of me. It wasn't like it was a bunch of guys you didn't know who they were. It was just all the who's who in golf were vying for that U.S. Open at Oakmont. I had to go through all those guys to win it outright.”
“I knew after four holes — I was six strokes back and I birdied the first four holes and I knew that I was in the running. The hair on the back of my neck sort of stood up when I said that to myself: You've got a chance to win. That made the adrenaline just start pumping.”
He had been preparing to win a U.S. Open virtually from the first time he banged a shot against that canvas in the garage. His time had come.
“In my career, I didn't let pressure affect me tee to green. Tee to green I was sort of bulletproof. But it affected my putting, and I left a couple of short putts short of the hole.”
No matter. He wasn’t short of his goal. He was a U.S. Open champion.