NBC's Miller Pulls No Punches

NBC golf broadcaster Johnny Miller pulled no punches a year ago as Phil Mickelson self-destructed before a nation's disbelieving eyes on the final hole of the U.S. Open at Winged Foot.

"Phil, you don't have to run down the last stretch on a white horse, you know," Miller said at one point in the telecast. "You could limp in there and say 'thanks for the trophy.'"

Miller will be back at it this week, offering the most acerbic, illuminating, infuriating, prescient and provocative commentary of any analyst on any sport working on television since the gory days of Howard Cosell in the 1970s and '80s. Plainly put, he's the best in his business, by far, even if several recent polls of fans and PGA Tour players clearly disagree.

In a poll taken by the Sports Business Journal, 72 percent of the respondents asked to name their favorite golf broadcaster picked the new man in the CBS and Golf Channel booths, six-time major champion Nick Faldo. In a Sports Illustrated poll of PGA Tour players asking the same who-do-you-like question, it was Faldo in a landslide again, 82 percent for the former Nasty Nick and only 18 percent for Jarrin' Johnny.

At NBC, which will air 16 hours of live Open coverage, they don't care.

Said Dick Ebersol, president of NBC Sports and the man who first put Miller on the air, "Johnny understands better than almost anyone else in sports television that he's there to serve not the players he covers, but the viewers first and foremost."

Miller has always insisted his comments are never meant to be personal, even if some players take it very personally. Justin Leonard, the hero of the U.S. victory in the 1999 Ryder Cup when he clinched the Americans' comeback triumph over Europe in his match against Jose Maria Olazabal, still hasn't forgiven Miller for saying on the air earlier in the week he'd probably do his team a favor by heading down the road back to Texas after playing so poorly in the team portion of the competition.

"Sometimes I cringe at Johnny because he makes some statements that you wish and he wishes he didn't make," Jack Nicklaus told the Palm Beach Post recently. "Johnny has asked me about it and I told him 'Johnny, you can say the same thing without hurting someone's feelings.' He's very insightful and he's very good at what he does. He's not afraid to say what he thinks and I think he's a lot better at saying it so he doesn't hurt someone."

Miller, as usual, has strong opinions on this week's U.S. Open at Oakmont, where he won in 1973 shooting the lowest final round in Open history, an eight-under 63 for a one-shot victory in the first of his two major championships (the 1976 British Open was the other).

On Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson: "Those two are freaks of golf¿I believe (Mickelson) is the favorite. If it were between Tiger and Phil, I take Phil. If he can hit the cut shot, he will win the Open. If he hits it on target he will win. He has as much talent as Tiger, but is driving the ball much better. I really believe Phil is the best player. It wouldn't surprise me if he won by six shots."

On Ernie Els: "Ernie is the little train that could. He's hitting the ball well and is very confident. It's an important championship for him. He still hits it well and long, but the hole shrinks when you get into your 30s. If you get through that, your 40s can be good, and he's put a lot of effort into this tournament. His confidence needs this."

On defending champion Geoff Ogilvy: "He's still mad at me for the comment I made, but he never heard me. I said 'even if the guy doesn't win the Open, he can tell his grandkids some day that I was leading the U.S. Open on Sunday on the 12th hole.' That's still a nice thing. I wasn't saying it as a negative, but he took it as if I said there is no way he's going to win, but at least he did have the lead. I did say it in a really nice way. Maybe if he heard it he would change his mind on accepting the compliment."

On Oakmont's treacherous greens: They are the toughest greens in the world. If you hit it above the hole, it's impossible. You're just not going to make any long putts. But it's about making the short putts below or to the side of the hole. The average 10-foot putt at Oakmont is six to eight inches out rather than the edges. Look for the guys who can hit it out of the rough well and also have a good short game to win."

On his victory in 1963: "If you look at the Open I won, it was a Hall of Fame group that was leading. It was all really tough players. It's not like I was going against nobodies. My concentration was amazing."

Thaaaaaaaat's Johnny, arguably the best there ever was.

Now the Bad News

The Golf Channel's Sunday afternoon coverage of the LPGA Championship at Bulle Rock left quite a bit to desire, particularly their decision to mostly ignore South Korean 18-year-old rookie Na On Min, the surprise third round leader.

On Sunday, Min had dropped down the leaderboard with three straight front nine bogeys, but she got herself right back in the hunt with four straight birdies on the back that got her to within a stroke of the lead. But the Golf Channel never showed a single one of those birdies live, a major blunder you'd hardly ever see on a network telecast.

The network also didn't come on until 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday, hardly the sort of coverage a major championship deserves. Perhaps the LPGA or sponsoring McDonalds didn't want to spend the money to get it on earlier, but if women's golf wants to play in the big leagues, more air time is clearly the best way to get exposure, and well worth the investment.

One last knock. After seeing virtually commercial free tournament coverage at The Masters and The Players Championship, with about four minutes of ads per hour, maybe we all got a little spoiled. But it also seemed as if TGC was cutting away from the action for three and four minutes at a time to air its commercials, at a rate of about 20 minutes an hour. And on the back nine, with a bunch of players all in the hunt, it's not necessary to throw in a two-minute golf update from the other tours to further break up the action.

On the plus side, Dottie Pepper and Nick Faldo were a nice combination in the booth, and Mike Ritz, as always, asked all the proper questions in his post-match player interviews.

More Bad News

Anyone pick up a copy of The Sporting News lately?

Why would you even bother?

A publication that once was considered the bible of baseball and a must read for so many years, has essentially been gutted since the magazine was recently sold to new ownership. One of the unkindest cuts of all involved my friend and former Post colleague, Davie Kindred, whose brilliant columns graced the back page of the magazine for so many years and recently was one of the few reasons to even pick up the publication.

Kindred, a past winner of the AP Sports Editors' Red Smith Award, the equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize for sportswriters, in my opinion remains on the very short list of the best sports columnists in America.

What does it say about the state of the Sporting News, or for that matter the country's leading newspaper sports sections, that he's no longer tapping out columns on a regular basis, save for his wonderful work in Golf Digest every month? Not much. That's what.

Leonard Shapiro can be reached at Badgerlen@hotmail.com or Badgerlen@aol.com.