The Greatest Round

Has it really been 30 years since Johnny Miller set the U.S. Open on its ear with an earth-shattering final round of 63 that scorched Oakmont Country Club and changed forever the landscape of major championship golf?

Or does it seem more as if it happened only yesterday?

“Geez, 1973,” Miller said. “No, it seems like it’s been a pretty long time.”

Three decades have passed since 26-year-old Johnny Miller, the lean kid from the Bay Area with the golden locks, plaid slacks, red shirt, can’t-miss swing and exaggerated follow-through went out and shot the lowest round in the history of the U.S. Open.

Miller’s 63 has since been matched twice, by Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf, in the 1980 Open at Baltusrol, but Miller’s round was magical. It was the first, the original, the heavyweight champion and the most important, basically because it single-handedly influenced the USGA to tighten the screws for an even greater degree of difficulty in the course setup for every U.S. Open since.

Before 1973, the USGA had long been in the business of making demanding U.S. Open courses, but after Miller unloaded his 63 on Oakmont, the Open layouts should have come with a warning label that they might be dangerous to a player’s health. Consider that the next year, at the 1974 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Hale Irwin’s winning score was seven over par.

Besides everything else he got from his 63 -- a U.S. Open record score, his first major title, a slice of history -- Miller says he is also responsible for an unexpected shift in philosophy on the part of the most powerful golf association in the world.

“My final round had more repercussions for the USGA than any other round in history,” Miller said. “The next year, [the course] was off the charts. I guess they really took a lot of flak. I sure took a lot of flak from a lot of players, blaming me.”

The official stand of the USGA was then and is now to disagree with Miller.

Sandy Tatum, who was the Open committee chairman at Winged Foot, says Miller’s 63 had no effect on how the USGA established the course conditions at Winged Foot.

“I was responsible for the setup,” Tatum said. “The decisions that were made were mine. Johnny Miller’s 63 at Oakmont had absolutely zero influence on how the course was set up at Winged Foot.”

Now, Miller disagrees with Tatum’s disagreeing with him about the effects of his 63.

“That’s a lie,” Miller said of Tatum’s comments. “That’s the biggest lie he’s ever said.”

However, the USGA official and chair of the 1973 championship committee who set up the course at Oakmont remembers it the same way as Tatum. Harry Easterly credited Miller with a masterful round of golf, but says that 63 didn’t affect the way the USGA did business.

“That was just a phenomenal score for those times,” Easterly said. “Oakmont was a very demanding golf course. It was no patsy. I don’t remember any sentiment to change the difficulty of the holes the next year. We always put them in the most difficult positions they could be.”

Whatever effect Miller’s 63 had -- and it’s interesting that it’s still being debated 30 years later -- there is no doubt of its significance on at least one level. It’s arguably the finest round of golf played in the pressure of a last day of a major championship.

Maybe everyone should have seen it coming. Miller was not yet the streaky player who could drop a 61 or a 62 in a regular tour event as easily as sticking a tee in the ground, but he clearly was ready to announce his arrival.

John Lawrence Miller first appeared on golf’s radar when he won the U.S. Junior Amateur in 1964. The 1966 U.S. Open was to be held at the Olympic Club, the course on which Miller virtually grew up. Miller was 19, an amateur, and had barely missed qualifying, finishing as first alternate in the field of 156, so he was going to caddie at the Open. But there was a withdrawal and Miller wound up playing instead.

He tied for eighth.

Miller graduated from Brigham Young in 1969, turned pro, picked up his first PGA Tour victory event in 1971 and won again in 1972. He won twice more in 1973 before he showed up at Oakmont, the so-called leader of the Young Thunderbirds -- Lanny Wadkins, Grier Jones, Jerry Heard, Jim Simons and Miller.

The Young Thunderbirds?

“We were all under contract to Ford,” Miller explained.

Miller was driven to succeed. To hear him say it, he was made for it.

“I was ready to break out. I really was groomed to be an Open champion as a kid, playing the Olympic Club and at Pebble Beach, San Francisco Golf Club, which could have hosted an Open. Playing courses with little greens, where accuracy is not as important as distance. I was knocking on the door at the Open. I wish I could have won more.”

The field was deep and loaded with talent at Oakmont in 1973, with some of golf’s greatest players at or near their peak, including Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Lee Trevino, Weiskopf, Raymond Floyd and Irwin.

“It was really quite a great group of golfers,” Miller said, “competitive, tough guys. Those guys were a bunch of tough scrappers. They didn’t give up much down the stretch. I would take them in any Ryder Cup. Floyd and Irwin, they just didn’t blow tournaments when they had a chance to win.

“And here I am, the new guy, won the U.S. Junior Amateur, All-American, the guy with the grooved swing.”

And with one round to go at Oakmont, that new guy was pretty much nowhere to be seen, certainly not way up there on the leaderboard.

Miller was tied for 13th after 54 holes, six shots behind the leaders -- John Schlee, Palmer, Julius Boros and Heard. Worse, Miller had just shot 76 in the third round, playing with Palmer, who had a 68 and was naturally the crowd favorite in what amounted to a hometown performance.

Miller started his final round about an hour before the leaders and got off to a torrid start. His three-iron second shot stopped five feet from the first hole. Birdie. He nearly holed a nine-iron at the second. Birdie. He launched a five-iron to 25 feet at the third. Birdie. He lipped out from a bunker for what would have been an eagle at the fourth. Birdie.

Miller assessed what was up: first four holes, three tap-ins and a 25-footer.

It was a nice start, but then there was a lull.

“After four, I started choking,” said Miller, blunt as usual.

He bogeyed No. 8 after hitting a four-wood almost perfectly to 20 feet below the hole, then three-putting when he missed a three-footer for par.

“That certainly made me go from mean to irritated,” he said.

Just as quickly, sweetness returned as Miller heated up again. He birdied the par-five ninth and then went on a tear, starting at the 11th. He hit a wedge to 14 feet and made it for a birdie, hit a four-iron to 15 feet and made it to birdie the 12th and got another birdie at the 13th, a par three, when he hit a four-iron to four feet.

Miller bagged one more birdie at the 15th to go eight under for the round and five under for the tournament.

“I was very aware of the number I needed,” he said. “I thought I’d either win by one or there would be a playoff. I wanted one more [birdie] as a cushion and managed that. Kept me going. I knew where Arnold was.”

Miller could have had more, but birdie putts lipped out at the 17th and 18th. He didn’t get a 61 or a 62, but he got the next best thing ... and, after all, no one had shot 63 in the U.S. Open before. No one in Open history, or any other major, has gone lower.

What’s more, Miller made it look easy.

He hit every green in regulation and even with that three-putt at the eighth, he needed only 29 putts.

Meanwhile, Palmer had already noticed that Miller was tearing up the place.

Palmer wound up with a 72, but he bogeyed consecutive holes on the back and tied for fourth with Nicklaus and Trevino, one shot behind Weiskopf, two behind Schlee and three behind Miller.

All that was left was the celebration, which consisted of Miller smiling.

“It was a very calm feeling,” he said. “I knew I had won the Open. In those days, you had a respectful attitude when you won. You didn’t do much fist-pumping.”

The accounting began almost immediately. How good was this 63? Some say Miller’s round might have been tainted because the course played easier as a result of rain that softened the greens. But how easy could it have been if only four of the 65 players broke 70? And if Nicklaus was the only player among the leaders to break 70?

Nicklaus needs no convincing that Miller’s round was one for the books.

“A 63 is a 63, period,” Nicklaus said. “I know I played exceptionally well and in my estimation, Johnny Miller’s 63 to win the U.S. Open is one of the finest rounds of championship golf ever played.”

Miller’s estimation of his performance is short and sweet and delivered in his typical no-frills, analytical style.

“I won the Open, set a course record, shot a 63 to win by one on the last day,” he said. “It’s hard to judge if it’s the best round ever. On the surface, that’s it. Lowest score, supposedly America’s toughest course. Against a great field.”

In 1974, Miller won eight times on the PGA Tour -- the best year until Tiger Woods won nine times in 2000. Miller kept going, winning four tournaments in 1975, one of them a 14-shot victory at the Phoenix Open. He won one more major, the 1976 British Open.

“Sure, I wish I had won more majors,” he said. “I would have loved to win the Masters.”

Miller wound up with 25 victories, which ties him for 21st on the all-time PGA Tour list of winners with Tommy Armour. His last one was in 1994 when he won at Pebble Beach, despite aching knees that keep him from the Champions Tour, if his duties with NBC and with six children weren’t enough to do that anyway.

But even now, 30 years after his 63 at Oakmont, three decades haven’t dimmed his achievement. Have they, Johnny?

“It was the most routine 63 you could ever imagine,” Miller said.

Hardly.

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How Miller Felled OakmontThe Best of the Rest

Several players have matched it, but no one has beaten Johnny Miller’s 63 in any major championship, and no other 63 had such an impact. Here is Miller’s scorecard and some other memorable 63s. Note: Circles around birdies, square around bogey.

*--* Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Out Par 4 4 4 5 4 3 4 3 5 36 Score 3 3 3 4 4 3 4 4 4 32

Hole 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 In Total Par 4 4 5 3 4 4 3 4 4 35 71 Score 4 3 4 2 4 3 3 4 4 31 63

*--*

Masters

Nick Price 63, 1986

It’s best known for Jack Nicklaus’ victory and his Sunday 65. But Price got hot on Saturday. (Greg Norman also had a 63 in 1996.)

British Open

Greg Norman 63, 1986

The Great White Shark finally took a bite out of a major at Turnberry, winning by five shots. (Six other players have shot 63.)

PGA

Brad Faxon, 63, 1995

Faxon shot a 28 on the front at Riviera on Sunday, helping him make the Ryder Cup team. (Seven others have shot 63.)