Johnny Miller

Johnny Miller is an American professional golfer and golf course architect, born on April 29, 1947 in San Francisco, California. His full name is John Laurence Miller. He won the U.S. Junior Amateur in 1964, went on to Brigham Young University, graduated in 1969 and joined the PGA Tour in the same year. At the U.S. Open of 1973 he came from behind to win at Oakmont with a closing round of 63, the first 63 ever recorded in a major. In 1976 he won The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, six shots clear of Jack Nicklaus and Seve Ballesteros. In 1974 he won eight times, topped the PGA Tour money list and was named Player of the Year. He won 25 times on the PGA Tour in all. He played for the United States in the Ryder Cup in 1975 and 1981, and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1998. For 29 years, from 1990 to 2019, he was the lead analyst on NBC’s golf coverage in the United States.

His design work is carried out as Johnny Miller Design, a company that handles house design, furniture and art as well as golf courses. Miller has taken part in the design of 34 courses. The best known of them is Thanksgiving Point Golf Club at Lehi, Utah, a course of 7,714 yards that opened in 1997 and which the club presents as a Johnny Miller signature course. Harmony Golf Preserve in Florida, which opened in 2002, The Bridges Golf Club at San Ramon in California, and Maderas Golf Club at Poway in California, designed with Robert Muir Graves, are also credited to Miller on the clubs’ own websites. In 2010 he became a co-owner of Silverado Resort at Napa, California. The following year, in 2011, he remodelled the North Course, lengthening it, widening the fairways and rethinking the placing of the bunkers. It was the first remodelling he carried out entirely on his own. The North Course has hosted a PGA Tour event since 2014.

His link with Southeast Asia dates from 1975, when the 23rd World Cup was played at Navatanee, on the edge of Bangkok in Thailand; Miller took the team title for the United States with Lou Graham and won the individual title as well. That course is also listed on GoGolf. In Japan he won the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament in 1974. GoGolf does not at present list any course designed by Miller.

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