GolfTube: Johnny Miller’s opinions dominate Presidents Cup coverage
Sizing up the TV coverage from the Presidents Cup ... and away we go.
Want to know the best way to get golf fans talking about the TV coverage of a golf tournament? Put Johnny Miller in the booth and let him go to town. On Thursday evening, following three hours of coverage from the Golf Channel crew, the network switched over and let NBC's Miller take over the booth.
The second he sat down, the Twitterverse was ablaze, as golf fans started to critique and complain about every sentence that came out of Miller's mouth. Debate all you want about there being a more talked-about broadcaster in sports, but with the exception of maybe ESPN's Chris Berman, nobody gets people talking about a broadcast more than Miller.
Miller, of course, was on from the very start. When asked if he'd ever seen Royal Melbourne play tougher than it was on Friday, he noted that "... we of course hit the ball a lot shorter with the old equipment, so its' hard to make comparisons." If you know Johnny Miller, then you probably realized seeing him start the answer with a personal note about his playing days was nothing new.
He certainly had his moments during the week, but one of the more bizarre comments came during Friday's telecast, when Miller claimed he invented the long putter. That's right: the same flat stick that's currently taking the golf world by storm.
"I invented the long putter in 1981," Miller said, "then Langer kinda copied me and won The Masters."
Miller has produced some head-scratchers over the years, but taking credit for the long putter is certainly of his most absurd comments, to date.
But he wasn't done with the "interesting" comments. After blasting Tiger Woods on Friday and saying that "instead of talking, [Tiger] should just be quiet and worry about his game. We've heard more than enough talk from him; it's time to see result," he blew the entire golf world away on Sunday.
"Tee to green, that's as good as I've ever seen Tiger Woods play," Miller said, following Tiger Woods' impressive singles victory over Aaron Baddeley. Ever, Johnny? Really? To top it off, he also told Roger Maltbie that Woods' performance was "like the Tiger of 2000."
And to think, just days before he was criticizing Woods' game. But that's Johnny Miller. Love or hate the guy -- and I know plenty of you can't stand him -- he does one thing for the sport better than anybody else, and that's create debates and discussion.
His comments may rub people the wrong way, but as we saw at the Presidents Cup, he certainly gets people talking -- and that's never a bad thing at a major event.
