By Leonard Shapiro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

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."

Still, there was a slight stall at that point when he left birdie putts of 10 and 12 feet short on his next two holes, then had his only bogey on the card when he three-putted the eighth from 18 feet.

At that point, Miller said he started telling himself what he's often said on the air about many other players heading in the wrong direction. He said he got angry and started calling himself a choker.

Properly motivated after posting 4-under 32 on the front, he ran off three straight birdies starting at No. 11 and got to 8 under for the day with his last birdie of the round at the 15th, when he hit a 4-iron to within 10 feet and made the putt.

"It was voted the greatest round for the centennial celebration of golf [in 1996]," Miller said. "So for me, that was enough validation. I know how good the round was. You know, young guys don't think we were that good. They think they're a lot better than we used to be. But if Bobby Jones or Sam Snead were 26, they'd still be in the top 20 players, no question about it."

After Miller's 63, the U.S. Golf Association took great pains to make sure there would be no repeat at the 1974 Open. That's when they played what has come to be known as "The Massacre at Winged Foot," with Hale Irwin prevailing by shooting 7-over par 287, the highest score in relation to par in tournament history.

"No doubt every guy at Winged Foot was mad at me for shooting so low because of the direct response on the length of the rough," Miller said. And when the Open returned to Oakmont in 1983, at the members' insistence, the rough was several inches higher, angering the players and nearly causing the USGA to take the club out of its Open rotation.

Miller has since said that "the way I played that day, it wouldn't have mattered what they did to the course." Most who saw it agree.

"It was an amazing round of golf," Phil Mickelson said recently. "Just a combination of it all. How tough it is to get the ball to the hole with those greens and what a perfect ball-striking round to get around that course in that many under par. I don't think anyone will come close to that this year."