Chasing Greatness

by Adam Lazarus

  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.

  “I was feeling pretty good about the lead. I’d never lost with seven shots and nine holes [to go],” Palmer said. “Yes, I am well aware of Ben Hogan’s 276 Open record. I was thinking about it at the turn—thinking if I could beat it.”

  While British reporters cabled news of Palmer’s victory across the Atlantic, Casper hadn’t yet given up. No one paid attention when Palmer drove into the bunker on the tenth for a bogey, or lost another stroke by failing to make par on the thirteenth. After both men made pars on the fourteenth, Palmer still owned a five-stroke edge with only four holes to play.

  But, starting on the fifteenth, the man who had set the standard for miraculous U.S. Open comebacks at Cherry Hills was soon fed a taste of his own medicine. His seven-iron off the par-three tee landed in a bunker and, after a good recovery, he could not save par from eight feet. Casper’s successful twenty-footer for birdie meant a two-stroke swing; the lead was now three shots with three holes to play.

  Palmer’s charge in reverse worsened on the sixteenth, Olympic’s signature 604-yard par-five. His drive grazed a tree branch and dropped into high rough, and his attempt to escape with a three-iron simply “didn’t get airborne.” He needed another stab with a nine-iron just to reach the fairway.

  “My first three shots at this hole didn’t go more than three hundred and fifty yards.”

  With his fourth shot—a three-wood—dropping into a green-side bunker, Palmer was lucky to salvage a bogey. Casper’s birdie four cut the difference to a single stroke with two holes remaining.

  Palmer’s errant ball striking continued on the seventeenth: driver into the left rough, six-iron into the right rough. He then struck a fine wedge to within seven feet, but when his par putt missed for a third consecutive bogey, the insurmountable seven-stroke lead had entirely disappeared.

  Even “Arnie’s Army” lost its cool watching the horror unfold.

  “My caddie told me he was kicked in the shins and almost knocked down,” Palmer said, “but I can’t really blame the crowd. I suppose I’d push and shove if I wanted to get a look at a match, too.”

  The rowdy members of the army weren’t alone. Millions more at home turned on their sets just as Palmer’s nightmare began at four p.m. on the East Coast. The American Broadcasting Company employed seventeen cameras—the most ever for televising a golf tournament—to cover the final five holes at Olympic.

  Viewers who tuned in for the eighteenth hole feared it was all over for their hero. Wild off the tee again, Palmer hooked a one-iron into the rough. From the same (now thinner) patch of fairway rough that had sealed Hogan’s play-off loss in 1955, the King muscled the ball onto the green and managed to two-putt for par. When Casper’s downhill, sidehill birdie putt missed, an additional eighteen holes on Monday were needed to determine a champion.

  As he had done four years earlier at Oakmont, prior to his play-off with Nicklaus, a smiling, whimsical Palmer posed for photographs with the man who, minutes earlier, had crushed his hopes for a second U.S. Open title.

  “I’ll be eating buffalo meat pretty soon too. It might help me make a couple of birdies,” Palmer joked in front of the cameramen. Casper’s exotic diet, which also included bear and elk meat, had become legendary; he ate bear meatloaf the night before the final round.

  In his third U.S. Open play-off in five summers, Palmer seemed poised to break a cycle of poor starts: In both losses, to Nicklaus in 1962 and Julius Boros (at The Country Club in Brookline) in 1963, he immediately fell behind with bogeys at the opening hole, and trailed by three strokes at the turn. This time, Palmer cruised during the early holes, and took a two-stroke edge over Casper at the midway point.

  But, for a second straight afternoon, Palmer collapsed on Olympic’s back nine. Casper’s birdie and Palmer’s bogey on the eleventh evened the score. Casper then outplayed his partner by a stroke on each of the next three holes, and the tournament was essentially over by the time Palmer ran into another catastrophe on the seventeenth; he needed five shots to reach the green. With a one under 69, Billy Casper, not Palmer, won his second U.S. Open.

  Immediately after the championship, reporters huddled around Palmer to ask how this play-off measured up to the others.

  “It was pretty damn similar.”

  LESS THAN AN HOUR BEFORE Palmer’s fourth-round meltdown ended, John Miller walked off Olympic’s eighteenth green. A closing-round 74 had put him into a tie for eighth place. Though not even BYU’s top golfer, he had just become the first teenager in more than half a century to finish in the top ten of a U.S. Open.

  “I wanted to play so good in that Open,” Miller said years later, “that when I came in eighth I was almost upset.”

  Not too upset; the entire Miller family—not just John—had enjoyed Casper’s unprecedented rally.

  In addition to the novelty of shrimp-and-avocado breakfasts or buffalo-steak dinners, Casper, too, belonged to the Mormon Church. Similar to Laurence Miller, Casper and his wife had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints long after starting a family. In fact, Casper was baptized just six months before his win at Olympic.

  “Golf isn’t the most important thing in my life now as it used to be,” Casper said after Olympic.

  Miller and Casper—both converted Mormons, California born and raised (Casper was from San Diego)—never crossed paths at Olympic. But Miller, as the top amateur, earned an invitation to play in the followin
g spring’s Masters Tournament, and, starting that week at Augusta National, a close bond and mentorship between the two formed.

  “Billy told me to wait it out: that there would be good days and bad ones, but never look back on the bad ones. He could see I was a little on the frustrated side when I had a bad round. He leveled me off and was a steadying factor in my first golf play. I learned from Bill that when you have that bad day, which I have had many times, the next one might be brighter—and bright enough to win.” Miller made the cut in his first Masters Tournament, finishing fifty-third to Casper’s twenty-fourth.

  But—especially on the intercollegiate front—Miller was not regarded as the dominant player of his era. Contemporaries such as Hale Irwin, Grier Jones, Marty Fleckman, Bob Murphy, Bob Dickson, and Ron Cerrudo earned All American acclaim largely for great performances in the major national collegiate and amateur events, especially the U.S. Amateur and the NCAA Individual National Championship. By contrast, Miller’s greatest achievements came outside the collegiate sphere: the eighth-place finish in the 1966 U.S. Open, and the impressive showing at Augusta National the following spring.

  Miller’s greatest moment while representing BYU came in the fall of 1967. In October, he and his Cougar teammates headed south to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to compete in the William H. Tucker Invitational, a prestigious event featuring several of the region’s top programs. Colorado, Texas Tech, New Mexico, Louisiana State, Arizona, and Arizona State were all there. So was the University of Houston, the nation’s best golf program and the school Miller had turned down for BYU.

  Miller shook off bad memories of the University of New Mexico South Course—the previous May he had shot an 82 to detonate any chance of winning the Western Athletic Conference individual title—and turned in a four under 68 to take the second-round lead in both the individual and team standings. Over the last two rounds, Miller played the course at one under par to win the individual title (over such notable Houston stars as Hal Underwood and Bob Barbarossa), and to lead his team to perhaps the most important victory in the history of BYU’s golf program.