[archie_struthers]

 


Certainly Johnny M would have been better off if someone else said it , but have to believe he's right . I vividly remember watching that round as I was just becoming interested in golf , really interested . Miller went bonzo that day !  John Schlee and Arnie were battling it out , grinding out pars on Oakmonts incredibly difficult greens .




When they posted Miller's score on the board , both players perceptibly gave it a double take , a "WTF" moment . Excuse my French .


Today I wouldn't be surprised if there were a ton of low numbers maybe another 64 or 65 .


"It's not Oakmont "

[Tom_Doak]

It was silly of the Fox crew to make Thomas's round out to be some sort of new record ... of course that was all Joe Buck, Azinger and Faxon were not gushing over it quite the same.  [Both of them knew what Johnny Miller would think of it.]  It's just a different era now than Oakmont, which in 1973 didn't have four par-5's that guys can reach [Erin Hills's longest is only 667 yards!], and I doubt very many guys in '73 had putts inside ten feet for eagle at Oakmont #17.


None of that should take anything away from Thomas's round which was brilliant.


Johnny Miller rates Oakmont one of the top ten courses in the world -- as nearly all major champions, except Nicklaus, tend to rate the courses where they won.  I'm pretty sure Justin Thomas will have Erin Hills in the same lofty company.

[MCirba]

Tim,
I could be wrong but I am not sure the scores will back up much if at all unless the wind blows 30+.  I think the course has been exposed and the world now sees what the best golfers in the world can do when you let them hit driver.  It shows where the game off golf has gone at that level.  Maybe on the positive side it will wake people up before we start seeing 700+ par fives and 600+ par fours.  We are basically at 8000 yards now.  9000 is not too far away 

+1

[jeffwarne]

Here is Miller's final hole:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DisSQ8bFS0U


Driver, 145 iron, missed the putt for 62, and tap in for 63

If that's a 24 yard wide fairway, I'll eat my hat
and the ball backs uo on the green like a Westchester muni.
and a 65 also shot that day.

[MCirba]

It isn't Oakmont but you don't say that.

[John McCarthy]

He is right but I would not say it to a reporter. 


The sooner Joe Buck is off my television the better. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Here is Miller's final hole:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DisSQ8bFS0U


Driver, 145 iron, missed the putt for 62, and tap in for 63

Wow, no bleachers, spars-ish crowd.  I bet many more thousands now claim to have seen Miller's than actually saw it, typical for this kind of record.


As to his comments, my grandfather always thought living life the right way was a much harder accomplishment than any particular feat of athletic ability.  Wonder what Johnny's GF taught him?

[Jack Carney]

Really just Johnny being Johnny right? Haven't been a fan since he predicted himself at the Masters after winning in Arizona - come on man!! !I like him better as a commentator by far. Played them both several times and regardless of conditions Oakmont is a far tougher test - no question.


The real question is just when are we as a golfing society going to take the air out of the golf ball? Southern Hills has just announced a $27MM renovation; $20MM on the course; to "return" to original design but primarily to add length. This is going on all over the country - spending millions on adding length to iconic courses so they can be played by modern equipment. It won't take long before all the great old courses just turn into mildly interesting antiques. Not sure Southern is iconic but thats beyond the point. I understand that the golf ball industry is BIG money but come on guys. What we are going to take away is frighting!

[JJShanley]

They each scored 63. The "relative to par" number is just that; it's relative. I don't think Thomas will be bragging that he beat Miller's record even though I absolutely knew Miller would piss on this young man's round. That's Miller. Regrettably all the talking heads on tv we're talking like the record had been broken. It's all relative, I suppose.

Can you imagine having JM as a father-in-law?

[Keith Phillips]

Two awesome rounds played by world-class golfers coming from way behind the leaders...of course Johnny shouldn't have been the one to say it but it was regrettably predictable...Johnny's round is superior because (a) Oakmont played far harder that day...I believe only played 4 or 5 players broke par vs. 32 yesterday; and (b) it was for the win.  That doesn't take anything away from the epic round Thomas played last yesterday...I'll never forget those 3-woods landing like 7-irons.  I think Erin Hills is a great championship venue and it will be a lot of fun today.

[Joe Hancock]

I'm struggling to buy into the "number of players who broke par" part of the discussion. It seems to me that the field today is so much deeper, and the modern golfer is so much more trained. Whether the Oakmont of yesterday was harder than Erin Hills today is also tough with the difference in equipment and changes in golf course conditioning.

[Tom_Doak]

If that's a 24 yard wide fairway, I'll eat my hat

Johnny's memory must be slipping.  Fairway widths for U.S. Opens in the 1970's and 80's were 30-33 yards.  They only went down to 25 yards about ten or fifteen years ago, I can't remember which tournament it was. 

[Jim Nugent]

Here is Miller's final hole:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DisSQ8bFS0U


Driver, 145 iron, missed the putt for 62, and tap in for 63

Johnny lipped the cup -- caught a lot of it -- for the 62. 

Here are some of Justin's stats from yesterday:

Fairways hit:           79%
Greens hit:            78%
Driving distance:   322.7
# putts:                 25

And here are the averages for the entire field the 3rd round:

Fairways hit:          77%
Greens hit:            70%
Driving distance:   306.18
# putts:                30

[Tim_Cronin]

The wind is howling here at Erin Hills. 30 mph gusts; 25 pretty steady out of WNW, a direction it hasn't blown this week.

[Terry Lavin]

Let's not forget that Miller was quoted before the championship as being of the opinion that EH would be a "one and done" Open site. He surely thought his record was reaching an expiration date.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Wikipedia for the '73 Open lists Miller's shot by shot details...the page says that on 18 he went driver-5 iron.  In the video an announcer says he was 145 yds away, but the swing looked like a longer iron swing.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_U.S._Open_(golf)

[Andy Stamm]

The better round should be the one that is lower vs the average score shot that day. Both rounds were after the cut in the US Open, so only great players playing well. If you want to throw out a few outlier very high scores or something fine. But at the end of the day the measure is how much better was the player than everyone else that day. And that wouldn't be that hard to find out.


As far as distance, Nicklaus hit driver on 8 in '73. And he was as long it came then. You don't see many pros hitting drivers on par 3s these days. Not that it matters, though.


Unfortunately very little of Miller's round made the TV coverage. They didn't show that much, and he was out front and not in the running. From what you could see, he was close to the hole all day, and it could have been lower.

[jeffwarne]

Let's assume Miller's round was better-I'll concede that.Oakmont is historically a beast.


That's even more reason to be secure enough to NOT make the oh so predictable comments he made.


Not missing his "often wrong but never in doubt" commentary one bit at Erin Hills.
Yes Fox isn't perfect(I hate their small leaderboard), but they continue to improve.

[archie_struthers]

Johnny 's personality should not make you forget the lasers he hit in that stretch of brilliant golf in the 70's . He was literally on fire for,a few years . Didn't he win times one of the years . That's Tigeresque. 

[BHoover]

Johnny also won a British Open at Royal Birkdale. I think he beat both Nicklaus and Ballesteros by 6 shots. So he could indeed play.

[Kalen Braley]

Johnny was certainly correct about EH never being confused with Oakmont...

[Peter Pallotta]

There's not a false note with JM, not even false humility; he's not going to say what he doesn't believe -- no matter how much others wish he'd take (what we think of as) the high road instead. He's under no ethical or social obligation to speak *the* truth (whatever that might be), or the popular truth, or the convenient truth -- only *his* truth. That's what he seems to do all the time; and he stands out because of it -- so rare a thing it has become.
Peter   

[Kevin_Reilly]

Well, that's one way of putting it.  In his book "I Call the Shots", Johnny said that he outplayed Jack Nicklaus tee to green in his Shell's WWOG match at Olympic.  The infamous match where Jack played like Jack, and Johnny didn't break 80.  I was there, and Johnny's self-evaluation couldn't have been further from the truth. 

[Terry Lavin]

There's not a false note with JM, not even false humility; he's not going to say what he doesn't believe -- no matter how much others wish he'd take (what we think of as) the high road instead. He's under no ethical or social obligation to speak *the* truth (whatever that might be), or the popular truth, or the convenient truth -- only *his* truth. That's what he seems to do all the time; and he stands out because of it -- so rare a thing it has become.
Peter

Not that rare. We have a president who doesn't care about the truth, public opinion or political correctness. He's very self absorbed, in a Milleresque fashion. 😅

[Peter Pallotta]

Kev - yep, you're right. But then again, JN (who I also think very highly of) went for years saying he never missed a putt of less than 3 feet on a Sunday when a major championship was on the line (or something to that effect). After 20 years or so of hearing this, some reporter went through all the old reports and all the old footage and discovered that JN did indeed miss such a putt -- and then he had the temerity to bring it up in an interview with the Great Man himself. JN grew silent, stared at the reporter straight in the eye, and finally said: "I *made* that putt - it just didn't go in".
All of which is to say, most of us have self-serving memories and self-serving beliefs. I like JM because he doesn't hide behind the usual social conventions.     
Peter


T - the difference, it seems to me, is that one of them actually *believes* the story he's telling.

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