Johnny Miller returns to Oakmont — and addresses 1 ‘not very nice word’

OAKMONT, Pa. — Johnny Miller wanted to win by a touchdown. 

Or even two. 

“I was more of a guy that didn’t like it to be close,” he said. “… I wanted to win it by — when I won the Phoenix Open by 14 shots, I liked it. If that ball is going in the hole, I’m going to fill it up until the round is over if I can. None of this fancy stuff about hitting away from the target. I wanted to have the thrill of going for knocking down pins out of the green. That was my fun. I liked to drive fast and hit hard with the driver and that kind of stuff.

“I don’t know, everybody does it differently. But that’s just the way I thought.”

The thought also made for a feeling of empathy Saturday morning as Miller and Jack Nicklaus returned to the U.S. Open and Oakmont Country Club, the homes of two of their greatest wins — Nicklaus won his first-ever major at the 1962 Open at Oakmont; Miller shot a then-record 63 in the final round to win the 1973 Oakmont Open. Another Miller job, though, started the winning-margin talk:

Broadcasting. From 1990 to 2019, he worked as NBC’s lead golf analyst, but, no, he said, he didn’t want to stay in TV longer. 

“That was my 50th year in golf when I got to 29 years with NBC,” Miller said. “It seemed like a nice time to leave. I still had my wits about me and had my own way of doing things.

“When I played on the East Coast especially, they’d go, ‘Hey, Johnny, we love you, keep telling it like it is.’ What people liked about my announcing was that I just said what I’d say to my best friend in my own house and talking to the TV. It was sort of like, it is what it is.”

Over time, he became synonymous with a word, though: 

Choking. It wasn’t surprising, then, that Miller said he himself liked being well ahead, as the moment can get to anyone. 

“If a guy duck-hooks it on the last hole and hasn’t hooked a ball in the last month, he might be choking,” Miller said. “I was the first guy to use that word, which is not a very nice word. But I thought the greatness of golf was the choke factor. I just still think that that’s the greatness of golf is to be able to handle pressure. 

“If you can handle pressure — Jack liked to hang around the first three days and then just feel like on the last day he had a huge advantage. He believed in himself, and not only believed in himself, he could produce on that last round and handle the putt or the shot.”

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There was more analysis on Saturday morning. 

Both players were asked what they admire about each other’s games, which drew these answers:

Said Miller of Nicklaus: “He’s not a normal guy, this guy. He just believes in what he can do, and he had the length and he had the high ball and nobody could hit a 1-iron like he could. Nobody concentrated more than him. But he would be there — imagine in a major championship, this guy would be there a week early, and for four or five days, he’s the only guy that had been on the property. Who do you think, once the bell rang on Thursday, who do you think believed who deserves to win? This feeling of deserving to excel and win is a huge part of athletics.

“If you feel — like Scottie Scheffler, he believes he works harder on his game than anybody else, and there’s something about that. Ben Hogan, nobody hit more balls than Ben. That feeling of deserving is a huge part of being successful.”

Said Nicklaus of Miller: “Well, Johnny Miller is obviously a really good player. I loved his swing arc. I loved the way he played. I loved the — Johnny was a streaky player, and once he got his putter rolling, get out of the way, because he made a lot of putts.

“Johnny carried that sort of — I suppose when you’ve got that thing going, a little bit of a swashbuckling attitude, and into broadcasting, too.”

Here, Miller laughed. 

Said Nicklaus: “He played it as it was and I think he said it as it was when he was on the air. I think you admire a guy for, sometimes he’s going to take a little bit of a hit for sometimes what he said, but for the most part that’s what he thought. I can’t criticize somebody for saying what they thought. Johnny did a really good job of that through the years of his broadcasting. He was probably the most insightful guy out there.”