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Authors: Adam Lazarus

Tags: #Palmer; Arnold;, #Golfers, #Golf, #Golf - General, #Pennsylvania, #Sports & Recreation, #Sports, #United States, #Oakmont (Allegheny County), #Golf courses, #1929-, #History

Chasing Greatness: Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, and the Miracle at Oakmont (16 page)

BOOK: Chasing Greatness: Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, and the Miracle at Oakmont
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Miller was especially gifted as a putter; he routinely one-putted the greens at Harding Park, and once needed only sixteen putts there to complete an eighteen-hole round. Miller’s smooth stroke and sure nerves often won him twenty-five-cent bets on the practice greens. His father and John Geertsen overlooked the moral transgression.
“If there were a better putter in the world than me when I was twelve years old, I’d like to have seen him,” Miller wrote.
If, on occasion, the undersized, preteen Miller coaxed both friends and unwitting marks into putting contests, by the time he entered Lincoln High School his hustling days were over. He grew ten inches between his freshman and junior years (he grew three additional inches in his twenties), went undefeated in three years of interscholastic matches, and won the 1963 San Francisco City Championship.
And teenagers were not John’s only golf victims.
In June 1963, at age sixteen, Miller reached the second round of the California State Amateur championship at Pebble Beach. There he faced a forty-two-year-old petroleum engineer named John Richardson. Miller won two of the three opening holes against the former champion before his caddie, high school teammate Steve Gregoire, saw an unfamiliar club in the bag: a one-iron Miller had used to warm up. Realizing that this was the fifteenth club (one more than the rules allow), Gregoire handed the club to Miller’s mother, who was trailing her son throughout the match. Miller also immediately admitted the mistake to Richardson, on the fourth tee.
Although Richardson chose not to invoke the appropriate penalty stipulated by California’s rules of golf (forfeit each hole to that point or a total of three holes), “[D]iscussion of it spread around the course via the grapevine and by the time Miller reached 18, a 2-up winner, almost every galleryite on the course, and the officials as well, knew about it.”
Technically, the issue was simple: Miller should have forfeited the first three holes of the match instead of holding a two-up lead.
But Richardson—the father of a teenage boy—saw that Miller was in tears because of the ordeal and refused to formally protest. “If I can’t beat him (Miller) on the golf course, I don’t want to do it on a technicality,” he said.
After a lengthy conference, according to a local reporter, “The committee ruled that Richardson lost the case when he refused to squeal,” and Miller walked away with a victory. California’s rules of golf left enough leeway for the committee to reach this decision, and the rules, in any case, took a backseat to Richardson’s paternal instincts. The press also treated Miller kindly.
“John Miller, a quiet, bright young man who minds his manners and obeys his conscience, won a golf match Thursday and learned, the hard way, a few facts of life.”
Losing in the following round did nothing to diminish Miller’s superb performance in America’s most prominent state amateur tournament. And local reporters still printed the label assigned to Miller by his swing coach, John Geertsen: “a cinch for future golf greatness.”
The next summer, he not only proved himself the best young golfer in his state by winning the California Junior Amateur; he vaulted onto the national stage.
Prominent local golf icon Bill Powers convinced Miller to travel to Oregon to enter the National Junior Amateur Championship. In July 1964, the Eugene Country Club hosted the seventeenth-annual showdown of the world’s top players under age eighteen, and from the outset Miller dominated. At the qualifier on July 28-29 (the top 150 qualifiers advanced to match-play competition), Miller earned medalist honors with a two-under-par 140—a record that lasted for over four decades.
During three days of match play, Miller cruised through the field. His only challenge came in the quarterfinals, when he drove wildly and hit numerous trees as well as a member of the gallery. But he still won the match when his opponent, sixteen-year-old Minnesota State Amateur champion Robert Barbarossa, three-putted the eighteenth green.
In the finals, Miller jumped out to a quick lead against Mexico’s Enrique Sterling, but the match remained close throughout. One up at the turn, Miller traded blows with Sterling until the par-three seventeenth, where a win meant the championship. Miller just missed dropping a hole-in-one and took the title.
“I like [Arnold] Palmer because he’s so bold,” he told the press. “I think I pattern my play after him quite a bit.”
The triumph in Eugene made Miller a minor celebrity in the world of golf. The August 24, 1964, issue of
Sports Illustrated
featured a fresh-faced Miller as one of the “Faces in the Crowd” (the publication’s recognition of athletes not in mainstream or “big-time” sports). The brief entry celebrated Miller’s victory in the junior amateur, boasting about his second-round 68 in the qualifier as well as the almost hole in one on the seventeenth during the final match. The article also referenced the adoring Miller’s quote about Arnold Palmer.
Sports Illustrated
was not alone in marking the promise of greatness in John Miller. The University of Houston, the nation’s dominant college golf program, offered him a full scholarship (they also, according to Miller’s book
I
Call the Shots,
offered Laurence a Mustang convertible!). Miller elected to stay closer to his family, both geographically and religiously, by choosing Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, the nation’s leading Mormon institution of higher learning.
The University of Houston and BYU shared the same team nickname, the Cougars, but the comparisons ended there. While Houston had won twelve Division I national championships between 1956 and 1970, Miller chose a program that had yet to produce a conference champion or a prominent golf professional.
That changed with the star-studded class that Coach Karl Tucker recruited in 1965. During the next two years, four Cougars competed for the team’s top spot, but reigning Mississippi State Amateur champion Mike Taylor—not John Miller—was the team’s best player.
“Mike was the first player I saw who looked like he could lead us out of the wilderness,” Coach Tucker recalled. Taylor’s teammates Jack Chapman and Bud Allin also regularly shot scores equal to or better than Miller’s in college matches.
Led by Taylor and the strong supporting cast, almost overnight the Cougar program sparkled in the Western Athletic Conference. An 8-0 record during the 1966 spring season, followed by superb performances by the team’s top four players, brought the championship title to Provo for the first time in school history. Miller finished seven shots behind Utah’s Bruce Summerhays in the individual championship, and several strokes behind Taylor, Allin, and Chapman.
Thus, the BYU legend that “Johnny came in and gave the program a face-lift” isn’t quite accurate; Miller was not
the
savior of the school’s golf program. Instead, similar to his development under Geertsen, Miller’s game progressed gradually during his college years, and saw a series of streaky up-and-down moments.
As a notable collegiate golfer and former national junior champion, Miller was already an emerging star. But it took a serendipitous return to his roots for millions of Americans to learn his name.
In the summer of 1966, the U.S. Open returned to San Francisco’s Olympic Club. Eleven years earlier, Jack Fleck had stunned the sports world by catching Ben Hogan in the final round and then beating him in a play-off—along with Sam Parks’s victory at Oakmont in 1935, one of the greatest upsets in golf history. Now, an even stronger field fought to an even more dramatic conclusion. Although no dark horse like Fleck shockingly claimed victory, the 1966 U.S. Open at Olympic was the birthplace of an international golf legend.
Seven years of seasoning at the Olympic Club had taught Miller every idiosyncrasy of the hilly, 6,727-yard terrain (the Olympic Club then featured two courses; the Open was played on the Lake Course, founded in 1927 and remodeled by Robert Trent Jones in 1953). Home from BYU for the summer, he signed up to caddie when the Open commenced in the middle of June. John would have been a huge asset to any professional or amateur lucky enough to have him tote their bag. But the sophomore did not want to squander his inherent advantage at Olympic on someone else; he chose to compete in the early June sectional qualifier to try to make the field.
Playing his other “home course” (the San Francisco Golf Club) in the sectional qualifier—another stroke of good fortune—Miller shot 143 over two rounds. That was the third-lowest total in a field that included such notables as Harvie Ward, George Bayer, and Bob Lunn to earn a spot in the Open. Miller gladly turned over his caddie slot to BYU sophomore Mike Reasor, who—perhaps even luckier than his Cougar teammate—drew Arnold Palmer’s bag.
Paired with Jack Nicklaus for two practice rounds, Miller tasted the stardom of a U.S. Open even before the championship began. Still described as “burly,” Nicklaus casually went about his round with Miller on Wednesday snapping off wisecracks for the hordes of fans and writers.
The Golden Bear’s serenity must have rubbed off on Miller: He dozed off at ten p.m. on Wednesday evening and nearly slept through his opening-round tee time. Although Miller showed little sign of nerves, his father was on pins and needles.
“I’m the only nervous one in the family,” said Laurence after the first round. “I was up at six a.m. and I figured Johnny would be too. But I kept looking in and he was sleeping after nine o’clock; I figured it was time he got up.”
The well-rested Miller joined Harry Toscano and another U.S. Open first-timer named Lee Trevino on the tee at 10:51 a.m.
“I guess I was a little bit nervous on the first hole, but after I sank my par putt there, I relaxed. My father and my pro, John Geertsen, were pretty nervous, I guess. I just hope they made it around okay.”
Armed with a five-wood that rescued him from the rough several times, Miller fired an even-par 70 to grab a share of fifth place—one stroke better than Nicklaus and Palmer. The only blemish on the round, according to Miller, was a blown eighteen-inch putt on the sixteenth, which resulted in a bogey six.
“I wouldn’t take this round over, except for that putt on the sixteenth,” he told the press upon sinking a lengthy birdie putt on the eighteenth. “It was funny, but I wasn’t really worried about playing in the Open. In fact, I was worried because I wasn’t worried.”
Miller slept easily again at home that night—another twelve hours—and he kept pace with the leaders by firing a solid 72. At two over par by the halfway point, Miller had matched Nicklaus, whom he would be paired with for Saturday’s third round.
“[Nicklaus] won’t bother me,” Miller confidently said, “but the crowd will.”
Enveloped, for the first time, in a gallery of thousands, Miller’s performance tailed off during the third round with a 74. Though Miller was nine strokes behind the front-running Palmer and no longer in contention to win, the San
Francisco
Chronicle still praised him for “refusing to crack under the pressure of being paired with the long-hitting Nicklaus,” as well as the large crowds that followed them. And Miller still held a four-stroke edge over the next-closest amateur, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion and University of Florida ace Bob Murphy.
“They billed this one as the kid and the veteran,” Nicklaus said. “It’s the first time I ever played in this tournament with anyone that young. Usually I’m the youngest player.”
As a onetime child prodigy himself, the Golden Bear looked past his teenage partner’s years and saw promise.
“I thought Miller was quite impressive,” Nicklaus said. “I played two practice rounds with him before the tournament but he hit the ball better today than he did then. He’ll fill out, become stronger, and hit the ball even longer than he does now. I think he has quite a future ahead of him.”
Miller not only impressed the nation’s top golfer; he wowed viewers across America. With the television cameras following his partner, Miller stole a share of the spotlight. Millions of viewers saw him “put on quite a show” when he sank a chip shot from the rough for par on the fifteenth; not long after he dropped a fifteen-foot putt for a birdie on the thirteenth. He even closed out the round dramatically by holing a slippery twelve-footer for par on the treacherous eighteenth green.
Still, following five bogeys, frequent detours from the fairway, and the burden of sharing a tee with Nicklaus, Miller felt totally drained.
“I was never at ease,” he said. “It seemed like every time I wanted to hit a green, I missed the shot.”
Nicklaus outdid his playing partner by five strokes—only Dave Marr bested his one under 69—to move into third place. But even with the Golden Bear only four strokes behind, the story at Olympic centered on Arnold Palmer.
 
OPENING WITH A BIRDIE ON the first hole, Palmer outplayed his partner and fellow midtournament leader, Billy Casper. He even weathered a terrible back-nine stretch (double bogey, bogey) to build a three-shot lead over Casper going into the final round. Still, Palmer’s past preyed on his mind when he spoke to the press immediately after the round.
“I’ve lost some in this position,” he said, “the Masters, for one, although I won it in the play-off. But I did let it slip away the final day.”
His apprehension seemed unwarranted early Sunday afternoon. A fantastic 32 on the front nine extended Palmer’s lead over second-place Casper to seven strokes. (Nicklaus and other close contenders all failed to break par that day.) With an enormous cushion, Palmer had history, as well as a second U.S. Open title, on his mind.
BOOK: Chasing Greatness: Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, and the Miracle at Oakmont
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