Chasing Greatness: Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, and the Miracle at Oakmont (17 page)

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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

BOOK: Chasing Greatness: Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, and the Miracle at Oakmont
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“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 following 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.
Even before turning twenty-one, John Miller was a U.S. Open hero, a weekend qualifier at the Masters, and a first-team All American (an honor announced by Arnold Palmer, chairman of the selection committee) the previous year. And in May 1968, at a dinner inducting Casper into the California Golf Hall of Fame, Miller accepted the Northern California Amateur of the Year Award. Ultimately, the evening turned into a celebration of Mormon golfers: Miller’s former mentor, John Geertsen, was also presented with the state’s Golf Professional of the Year award.
Miller proved to be the best amateur in all of California later that summer by winning the California State Amateur championship. Sparked by a new putter and a new putting stance (he took only thirty-seven putts in twenty-six holes), Miller cruised to a 12 & 10 victory in the thirty-six-hole final round at Pebble Beach. The candid 160-pound senior proclaimed, “[Every] iron in my bag was great.”
Miller’s sparkling amateur resume naturally fostered visions of future greatness.
“Gene Littler and Ken Venturi both sprang from the California State Amateur Golf Championship to capture the United States Open,” the
Oakland
Tribune observed. “Johnny Miller is destined to follow in their footsteps.”
Like those two fine amateurs who quickly became great professionals, Miller did not return to Brigham Young in the fall of 1968. He never received his college degree and never undertook a Mormon “mission” at home or abroad (usually for two years), as did most Mormon male students at BYU.
“A college degree,” he said, “is not going to help you sink those two-footers.”
During the summer and fall of 1968, Miller competed in a few amateur tournaments and prepared for the tour qualifying school in Palm Beach Gardens in April. He experienced tour life in January 1969, qualifying for the Kaiser International Open Invitational at the Silverado Country Club and Resort in Napa. Playing just an hour from his home, Miller held his own among a field that included Trevino, Palmer, and Littler. His two under 70 on the first day was even more impressive because he lost a ball in a pond on the eighteenth. Terrible rains over the next two days—both Friday’s and Saturday’s rounds were washed out—did nothing to interrupt Miller. When he finally returned to the course on Sunday, he shot five birdies on the front nine, only to have the score erased due to more rain. The following morning, with the course drenched in water, Tournament officials declared Miller Barber the thirty-six-hole winner; John tied for forty-second.
Miller received his tour credentials in April 1969, finishing in the top fifteen at Q School along with fellow Californians Rodney Curl and Bob Eastwood. With representation by Ed Barner, a fellow Mormon and Billy Casper’s agent, and initial financial backing from a San Francisco-based group of businessmen, Miller ventured onto the PGA tour in May 1969.
Just like when he learned the game under John Geertsen, or his steady rise to first-team All American status at BYU—he received only honorable mention status, along with teammate Mike Taylor, following his brilliant performance at Olympic—there would be a few growing pains for Miller. After he quickly bagged $770 for a twenty-fourth-place finish in his first event, the Texas Open, he reached the top twenty-five only twice the remainder of the year.
Life on tour changed quickly for Miller in 1970. Playing desert golf in January at the Phoenix Country Club, he carded 72-71 and just made the cut. Forty-year-old Paul Harney’s 65 was the talk of the tournament, as the long-hitting tour journeyman led by one shot after two rounds. But the next day, Miller grabbed all the headlines and revealed for the first time a unique talent that would become his signature as a touring pro: The young man could “go low.”
Miller got off to a fast start on Saturday morning: birdies on the first three holes. Three more birdies on the front nine made for a stellar six under 30. Shooting par on the back nine would yield a 65, two off the course record of 63. Miller seemed headed for exactly that number over holes ten to fifteen. But he then rolled in lengthy birdie putts on the sixteenth and seventeenth; another par would tie the course record and spring Miller back into contention.
Miller’s Saturday was shaping up to be the mirror opposite of the day before.
“My putting was real bad,” he said about his Friday round. On Friday night, Miller had vented to Karsten Solheim, the innovative golf-club maker who, at the time, still personally hawked his controversial PING putters and new perimeter-weighted irons at tour events. Later that evening, Solheim helped Miller regrip and recalibrate his clubs.
“But while he was there,” Solheim recalled, “I started brainwashing him about my putters.”
Curiously, Solheim was just continuing a conversation he had started years earlier with Laurence Miller. In 1956, nine-year-old John and his father had participated in a hole-in-one contest at Lincoln Park, near the family’s San Francisco home. Solheim—then an engineer for General Electric—approached Laurence and tried rather aggressively to sell him on his inventions. But even a demonstration back at Solheim’s garage/workshop couldn’t convince Laurence to buy any of his oddly designed putters.
Skeptical at first, just like his father fourteen years earlier, John warmed to the rogue designs that Solheim handed him and selected a PING Cushin number four putter.
“[When] I rolled in about thirty straight putts on the rug, I started getting excited.”
With the new putter in hand, Miller exuded confidence on the greens during his Saturday dream round, especially around noon when he reached the 535-yard par-five eighteenth in two shots. A conventional two-putt birdie from forty feet meant the course record. Instead, Miller boldly stroked the putt, which dropped dead center for an eagle and a mind-numbing score of 61, one shy of the PGA tour record.

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