The Greatest Round of Golf
Johnny Miller shot possibly the most extraordinary round of golf ever on January 19, 1975
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The Sports Time Traveler
Johnny Miller hits his approach shot into the 9th green during the final round of the Dean Martin Tucson Open. This photo appeared in the Arizona Daily Star on January 20, 1975.
Introduction from The Sports Time Traveler™
Beginning with Johnny Miller’s spectacular 63 in the final round to win U.S. Open in 1973, it was Miller time on the PGA TOUR.
Many golf experts consider Miller’s 63 on a difficult Oakmont course, in the height of the pressure of a U.S. Open, to be the greatest round of golf ever played. He came from 6 shots back and passed all of the greatest names of the era: Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Tom Weiskopf, and finally Arnold Palmer to capture the U.S. Open.
Miller went on to win 8 tournaments the following year in 1974.
It took a quarter century, until Tiger Woods in 1999, before anyone achieved that again.
But Johnny Miller was still getting warmed up.
At the outset of the 1975 season, Johnny Miller had a brief run that just might be the greatest golf ever played.
And it was capped off with a total gem of a round.
I’ve just returned from my virtual trip to January, 1975 to experience Johnny Miller in the final round of the Tucson Open. Here’s my report.
TUCSON, AZ - January 20, 1975
Yesterday was the final round of the Dean Martin Tucson Open. Johnny Miller started the day with a 3 shot lead.
Miller was trying to win the 4th consecutive professional tournament that he has played in. Here are the prior 3:
8 shot win over Billy Casper and Lee Trevino in the Kaiser International Open on September 29, 1974.
7 shot win in the Dunlop tournament in Japan on December 8, 1974. 4-time major champion Ray Floyd finished 3rd, 9 shots back.
14 shot win in the first PGA TOUR event of the 1975 season, the Phoenix Open. The field included Hale Irwin, the 1974 U.S. Open champion, he was 22 shots back, and Lee Trevino, the 1974 PGA champion, he was 26 shots back.
In the Phoenix Open, Miller's 72 hole score of 260 was the lowest on the PGA TOUR in 20 years.
NOTE from The Sports Time Traveler™
I interrupt this article to share with you that 50 years ago I was a huge Johnny Miller fan.
At 5pm ET on Sunday, January 19, 1975, I was in my home in central New Jersey where the temperatures were in the high 30s. I knew it would be months until I could play golf again, a sport I had recently fallen in love with. But it was just minutes until I would get to see Johnny Miller on channel 4 in New York, in the final round of the Tucson Open. I couldn’t wait!
Sadly, there is no video tapes of this incredible round of golf of which I’m aware. If anyone knows of a video tape, even just a few highlights, please share it in the comments.
Now back to my virtual time travel trip in 1975.
Prior to the final round, Johnny Miller was asked by Carl Soto of the Arizona Republic about his prospects of winning his 4th consecutive tournament. Miller said, “It won’t kill me if I don’t win the tournament, but I’m not going to give it away. It’s hard to score bad when you hit it long and straight.”
Miller would need that length. The San Francisco Examiner noted that the par 72 Tucson National Golf Club at 7,200 yards, is, “one of the longest layouts the pros play all year and a course strengthened this season by the addition of water on three holes.”
THE FINAL ROUND
John Mahaffey was Miller’s closest pursuer starting the day 3 shots back. After the round Miller commented that when he saw that Mahaffey birdied the opening hole, he thought, “I’ve got to birdie if I don’t want to get down to 2 strokes… I had to get my butt in gear and I just did it.”
Miller didn’t just birdie the first hole. He started the day birdie-birdie-birdie.
Two more birdies on the 6th and 7th holes helped him to a 5 under 31 after 9 holes.
That put Miller at 19 under par for the tournament.
When Mahaffey birdied the 11th hole he got to 15 under, and still had a chance.
But then Miller came to the 11th, a par 5, and he put his 2nd shot just 20 feet from the pin. Johnny then made the eagle putt. That put him 7 under for the round and 21 under for the tournament. He had a 6 shot lead with 7 holes left.
Mahaffey told the Arizona Daily Star, “It was then that I started playing for 2nd place.”
Miller followed up his birdie on 11 with a 14 foot birdie putt on 12.
He was now 8 under on the round and had a 7 shot lead with 6 holes to play.
Two holes later, Miller hit his approach shot on the par 4 14th hold to just 18 inches from the cup. He tapped in for another birdie to go 9 under on the round.
Then it was another 14 foot birdie putt on 16 to go 10 under for the day.
And on 18 he made one final 14 footer for birdie.
Johnny Miller had shot a final round of 61.
He won the Tucson Open by 9 shots over John Mahaffey. 10 shots over Tom Watson. And 20 shots over Arnold Palmer.
It was Miller’s 4th consecutive professional victory.
The King expressed great admiration for Miller. He told Sue Hill of the Arizona Daily Star, “In all the years I’ve played I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this and I don’t think anyone else has either. He’s just walking right over the field.”
ASSESSING THE 61
Sportswriters in their pieces today analyzed what Johnny Miller had accomplished in shooting a final round of 61 yesterday.
The round was astounding. Just look at the basic statistics:
Every green reached in regulation
1 eagle
9 birdies
0 bogeys
But the most astonishing aspect of Miller’s 61 was that on every hole he had a birdie putt of 15 feet or less.
Think about that.
He never hit an approach shot that was farther than 15 feet from the pin.
Johnny Miller was dialed in at a higher level than anyone who has ever played the game.
And this was no pushover golf course. In addition to being a long course, Arnold Palmer described the greens to the AP as, “the most treacherous I’ve seen in a long time.”
Miller himself told the AP, “Without doubt, it was the greatest round of golf of my life… I could have shot in the 50’s… It could have been the greatest round of golf I’ll ever shoot.” The AP writer noted that Miller said this with, “a touch of awe in his voice just above a whisper.”
IT COULD HAVE BEEN A 59
Indeed, Miller could have shot a 59.
Jack Rickard was following Miller for the Tucson Citizen and he reported, “Miller dropped a couple of makeable putts, one of 5 feet on the 13th hole and another of 6 feet on the 15th hole.”
Harry Missildine of the Spokane Spokesman Review, wrote in this morning’s paper about his first-hand observations of the round, “Counting the near misses I watched on the last four holes, Miller was maybe three-quarters of an inch away from the first 59 ever shot in an official PGA Tournament.”
Bill Lyon in the Philadelphia Inquirer suggested the round could’ve been even better “He missed two putts from five-feet and had one lip out on a closing hole. Those three drop and you’ve got a neat 58.”
IS MILLER ON THE GREATEST RUN EVER?
Johnny Miller has now won the last 4 consecutive professional tournaments he has competed in by margins of 7, 8, 14 and 9 shots.
He has won the last 2 weeks in Tucson and Phoenix by a combined 23 shots.
He is a combined 49 under par across the last two tournaments.
And in those 2 tournaments, every round was under 70:
67, 61, 68, 64, 66, 69, 67, 61
As these are the first 2 tournaments of the 1975 PGA TOUR, Johnny Miller presently has a 65.4 stroke average for the season.
In the opening paragraph of their article on the tournament, The New York Times noted that Johnny Miller was, “playing golf perhaps better than anyone before.”
The San Francisco Examiner wrote, “Right now, Johnny Miller may be playing the ancient game of golf better than anyone has ever played before. His recent accomplishments are the stuff of legends.”
Furman Bisher, writing in the Atlanta Journal, penned this line, “Johnny Miller has turned out to be something not human.”
In the Tampa Tribune today, sports editor, Tom McEwen wrote that he contacted several former PGA TOUR stars to ask them about Miller’s recent play.
Cary Middlecoff, winner of 39 PGA events and 3 majors told McEwen, “Miller’s play in the Tucson and Phoenix tournaments… may represent the best back-to-back 72 hole tournaments EVER played.”
Mike Souchak, who holds the record for the lowest 72 hole score ever in a PGA tournament agreed with Middlecoff.
McEwen then called the legendary Gene Sarazen at his condo on Marco Island in southwest Florida. Sarazen, the winner of the 1922 U.S. Open and 7 majors in total said, “I don’t know what the hell is happening to the game of golf. I used to think 72 was a pretty good score.”
POSTSCRIPT - The best round of golf I ever played
In a 2021 Golfweek article, Johnny Miller told the magazine, “That was the best round I ever played. As far as perfect ball-striking, the 61 I had at Tucson… I'm playing with Tom Watson and as we walked off the green he goes, that's the greatest round of golf I've ever seen. Now, Tom Watson does not say that to anybody.”
The Sports Time Traveler will continue following Johnny Miller in 1975, precisely 50 years ago each week.
Thanks for reading.
Please share your comments on this article.
A reader commented that Jim Furyk shot a 58 in 2016. I'm aware of that round and that is the record low score on the PGA TOUR.
I would argue Miller's 61 was a superior round to Furyk's 58.
Furyk did it on a par 70 course. Miller played a par 72. So Furyk was 12 under for the round. Miller was 11 under. There really is only a 1 shot difference in the rounds.
Furyk benefitted from a drivable 294 yard par 4. He was 94 feet from the pin on his tee shot. Miller did not have the benefit of playing a drivable par 4.
Furyk did it on a 6,800 yard course. Miller was on a 7,200 yard course
Furyk had the huge advantage of the tremendous advances in club technology between Miller’s round in 1975 and Furyk’s round in 2016 which enable anyone to hit the ball significantly longer and straighter.
Furyk benefitted from a “lucky” hole out for eagle on a 135 yard wedge shot. Miller had no hole outs.
Furyk started the day in 70th place and had no pressure. Miller started in the lead, and had won his last 3 tournaments. Anything less than a victory would have been considered a failure.
Furyk had at least 4 holes where he was between 23 – 45 feet from the pin in regulation. Furyk averaged 21 feet from the pin. Miller never hit an approach shot more than 15 feet from the hole.
I think that last stat, hitting every green in regulation and never being more than 15 feet from the pin is what sets Miller’s round apart from any other round.