Miller may ruffle feathers but always tells it like it is

With about five minutes to go in the Ducks’ Stanley Cup-clinching victory Wednesday night, two fans in front of the NBC studio set at Honda Center held up a large hand-made sign with a circle and a slash across pictures of Don Cherry and Brett Hull. And Hull’s mouth had “Duck” tape across it.

One of the fans, Biff Malibu, on Thursday e-mailed a picture of the sign with this comment: “Mr. Hull, I know Johnny Miller, and you’re no Johnny Miller, sir.”

That’s in reference to Hull attempting to be as open and honest as the NBC golf commentator, who is known for saying whatever pops into his head.

Miller -- who will be in the spotlight next week at the U.S. Open, which ESPN and NBC will televise -- provides insight into his announcing style in a half-hour Golf Channel special that premieres Tuesday at 6 p.m. The show is appropriately titled “Johnny Miller: Open and Honest.”

In a taped interview with the Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner, Miller says, “I absolutely have no clue I am on the air. Sometimes I have to remind myself, ‘Don’t say that!’ ... The perfect announcing syndrome for me is that I get so interested in what’s going on that I don’t even know I’m announcing. That’s probably why I’m as candid as I am because in my mind I’m not even on the air. I’m just talking to you.”

Of criticism that he doesn’t spend time talking with the golfers he is commenting about, Miller said, “The way I announce I’m not going to be real chummy. The gallery loves my announcing. The people at home like my announcing because they are getting the real truth.”

Miller admits that in his 16 years of announcing there were probably five things he regrets. One was saying, “Craig Parry’s swing would make Ben Hogan puke.” Says Miller in the interview, “I could have said, ‘It would have made his stomach upset.’ ”

CBS this week sent out a news release citing Sports Business Journal and Sports Illustrated polls that asked readers whom they preferred, Miller or CBS’ Nick Faldo. Since it came from CBS, this was no surprise: Faldo got 72% of the votes in one poll and 82% in the other.

Where he is now

From Jan. 17, 1995, until the summer of 2002, Peter Kessler was Mr. Golf Channel. Known as “the voice of golf,” he was the host of numerous shows on the upstart channel and its most visible face.

Kessler, who still lives in Orlando, Fla., where the Golf Channel is based, now does a daily weekday one-hour morning golf show for XM Satellite Radio on Channel 146 and recently has been seen in an infomercial for Bobby Jones Golf and its hybrid club designed by Jesse Ortiz, formerly of golf-equipment giant Orlimar.

Kessler’s career at the Golf Channel took a turn for the worse in early 2001 when he criticized Arnold Palmer, co-founder and then chairman of the network. What riled Kessler was that Palmer had endorsed a nonconforming club, the ERC II by Callaway. The low point came during an interview with Palmer when he said, “If you were to call me a cheater right here, right now on this show, I would punch you in the nose.”

Kessler says he has no hard feelings. He said he was at a function six months after he left the Golf Channel and he and Palmer were laughing and having a good time.

Although his duties were cut after his on-air run-in with Palmer, Kessler said, “That was more about an effort to not have one person being seen over and over again.”

Added Kessler: “I had a really great eight-year run at the Golf Channel and I only wish them the best.”

The right man for the job

It’s fitting that Lee Trevino will be the commentator working alongside Chris Rose on Fox’s tape-delayed coverage of the Ultimate Game at Wynn Las Vegas this weekend. The two-day golf competition, to be shown Saturday on Channel 11 after baseball about 4 p.m. and Sunday at noon, features competitors who had to either put up a $50,000 entry fee themselves or have a sponsor or sponsors do it. The winner gets $2 million.

It was Trevino who once said, “Real pressure is playing for $10 when you don’t have a dime in your pocket.”

Said Trevino this week: “People who have millions and millions of dollars don’t know what pressure is. Tell them to go play for everything they have. If they’ve got $10 million, go play for $10 million.”

In the Ultimate Game, golfers who don’t have a lot of money are trying to win $2 million. And that’s pressure.

“It’s a very interesting concept,” Trevino said.

Short waves

The Ducks’ Stanley Cup victory celebration Saturday at Honda Center begins at 6:30 p.m., and FSN West will televise the final hour, beginning at 7:30. Hosting the coverage will be Bill Macdonald, Christine Nubla and Ducks TV announcers John Ahlers and Brian Hayward.

The outcry about the availability of Versus may reach new heights during the college football season. The network, through a sublicense agreement with FSN, has picked up Brigham Young-UCLA on Sept. 8, Stanford-USC on Oct. 6, and California-Stanford on Dec. 1.

The NBA Finals began on ABC on Thursday night amid a somewhat bleak ratings picture. For its 10 playoff telecasts so far, ABC has averaged a 2.9 Nielsen rating, down 23.7% from a 3.8 for the same number of games last year. TNT’s ratings are down 11.7% and ESPN’s down 27.3%.

Of the possibility of a rematch of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the French Open men’s final on NBC Sunday morning, commentator John McEnroe said if Federer wins “he’ll be the greatest player of all time, ahead of [Rod] Laver, ahead of [Pete] Sampras.”

It’s a good sign that Larry Merchant is working Saturday night’s HBO $44.95 pay-per-view card at Madison Square Garden featuring Miguel Cotto and Zab Judah. He and the network may yet iron out a new contract after all. Rick Bernstein, HBO Sports executive producer, called negotiations “optimistic.”

Bob Arum, who is promoting the event at Madison Square Garden, remains on the warpath to make boxing more entertaining and exciting. He cites what Ultimate Fighting has done with what he calls an inferior product.

“If a boxer put on four-ounce gloves, which is what they use in Ultimate Fighting, the boxer would devastate those bums,” Arum said.

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larry.stewart@latimes.com