Broadcaster Johnny Miller talks like most golf fans think

The comment was vintage Johnny Miller, raw enough to cause most television producers to wince.

Miller was in the NBC Sports booth at Doral in 2004 when he watched Craig Parry hit another beautiful shot to the green. Miller said what he saw. That was his job.

He just didn’t say it like other golf analysts.

“The last time you see that swing is in a pro-am with a guy who’s about a 15-handicap,” Miller said. “It’s just over the top, cups it at the bottom and hits it unbelievably good. It doesn’t look ... if Ben Hogan saw that, he’d puke.”

Parry got the last word, of course, holing out a 6-iron from 176 yards in a playoff to win.

Except that wasn’t the last word.

“I was in Ponte Vedra going back to the Honda Classic, and my phone is blowing up,” said Tommy Roy, the longtime golf producer at NBC. “It started percolating down in Australia, and you had radio stations demanding Johnny Miller be fired.”

Miller could make golf more fun to hear than to watch.

“He doesn’t have a filter. That’s why he’s so good,” Roy said. “What he’s thinking comes out. And 99.5 per cent of the time, that was a great thing for viewers, and for me. And 0.5 per cent of the time, it was a problem for our PR department and for me. “And it was worth it.”

Roy was in Wisconsin on Monday night for his first look at Whistling Straits for the 2020 Ryder Cup. It will be the first Ryder Cup since 1989 that doesn’t have Miller in the booth weighing in on good shots and bad with thoughts that immediately become words.

He often entertained. He occasionally irritated. He was rarely dull.

Miller is retiring after three decades calling the shots for NBC. His last tournament will be the Phoenix Open, the perfect exit for a Hall of Fame player once known as the “Desert Fox” for winning six times in Arizona. Miller was so good for so long that it was easy for younger generations to forget about that other career he had.

And to think that was nearly his only career in golf.

Miller said he wasn’t interested when NBC first approached him, but then his wife stepped in and told him it would be nice to have a steady paycheque. Even then, it took time for him to realize his audience was in the living room, not the locker room. He made his debut at the Bob Hope Classic in 1990 and it didn’t take long for him to leave his mark. Peter Jacobsen faced an awkward lie to the 18th green with water to the left.

“The easiest shot to choke on,” Miller said.

People thought about choking. Miller said it because that’s what he was thinking.

“What came into his brain came out of his mouth,” said Mike McCarley, president of golf for NBC Sports. “He was the first to really talk about the pressure. It’s the most important element of the game, especially in those really big moments. He was doing it at a time when others weren’t.” It wasn’t just the word “choke.” Phil Mickelson was getting upand-down from everywhere at the 2010 Ryder Cup when Miller suggested that if Lefty weren’t such a good putter he’d be selling cars in San Diego. Justin Leonard and Hal Sutton were losing a fourballs match at the 1999 Ryder Cup when Miller blurted out, “My hunch is that Justin needs to go home and watch it on television.”

Miller wasn’t sure he would last a week when he started. He never imagined going nearly 30 years.

He leaves behind a style all his own.