Open and Shut: '73 Finish Best Ever

"The bottom line is it was the perfect round of golf," Johnny Miller says of his 63 at Oakmont. (Associated Press)

Johnny Miller, arguably the most opinionated golf announcer of all time, gives full credit to Tiger Woods for what he described recently as "the greatest performance in golf history" -- Woods's record 15-shot victory at the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

But Woods was equally effusive in his praise of Miller's stunning final round of 8-under-par 63 to win the 1973 Open at Oakmont, site of this week's national championship starting on Thursday in the Pittsburgh suburbs. Woods was particularly in awe of Miller's ability to hit all 18 greens in regulation that day on one of the most demanding venues in the world.

"That's incredible," Woods said recently. "You've got to drive it great in there in order to have a chance to hit those greens because they're so penal. You think you can run the ball up there, but you really can't because the bunkers are so deep that you've got to drive it well and hit your irons well."

Miller did all of that and more on that memorable day at Oakmont 34 years ago, a round many say may have been the finest single-day performance in a major. Certainly, it remains the record for the lowest final-round Open score and allowed Miller to rally from six shots off the lead with 11 players in front of him at the start of play Sunday to a one-shot victory over third-round leader John Schlee.

Miller, who returns to Oakmont this week as NBC's outspoken lead analyst, has been asked in recent weeks to recall his exploits in '73, when he was a subdued, tow-headed 26-year-old phenom who idolized Jack Nicklaus.

"It was such an unbelievable ball-striking round," Miller recalled in a recent conference call. "I hit it right underneath literally every hole. I mean dead underneath the hole. It was the best ball-striking I've ever seen, and I've been around a little bit. It was unreal. It was like a magical round. And then I lipped out [a putt] at 17 and it was in the hole and came back out on 18 and I left it short on 14 from 10 feet, so it could have been even lower.

"It was always thought of as the hardest course in America, and if you shoot the lowest round in Open history, that would be the last place you could do it, especially in the last round. The greens were softened, but the bottom line is it was the perfect round of golf."

Nicklaus, who finished fourth that year, recalled recently that, "they had all kinds of rumors of what happened on the golf course, that the sprinklers stuck on, or whatever it was, so the golf course was extra wet.

"We didn't know that in the afternoon because the golf course played its normal way. But I don't care if the sprinklers were stuck on or the holes were six inches wide. That's a heck of a round of golf."

Miller birdied his first four holes, hitting approaches to five feet at the first, six inches at the second, 18 feet at the third and two inches at the fourth. At that point, he said, he started to feel as if he had a chance to do something special and possibly even win, even if he had posted a 5-over 76 the day before.

"It was like a light went on after I birdied the first four," he said.

"Just the old math, like you do when you're out there trying to break 80 or 90. See if I could just do this or that, like I just had a shot of adrenaline."