The Miller's Tale Is A Big Hit

As the rest of us stoically watched our gas gauges nudge us toward bankruptcy last week, down among the reeds, marshes, plantations and retired admirals of industry and the sea, on a course designed in part by Jack Nicklaus and played by just about everyone who ever made a penguin shirt famous, Johnny Miller struck again. He won another golf tournament, won it while keeping an ear on a basketball game, won it with, among other heroics, a hole in one, won it laughing, blond and beautiful.

The Heritage Golf Classic on Hilton Head Island, S.C. is a seaside oyster, its title a shiny pearl, and Miller went after it with his now familiar bold and brash style. He took the lead the first day, stretched it to a remarkable 10 strokes at one stage and won by three strokes on rounds of 67-67-72-70—276 for his fourth victory of the year.

While the other players staggered around the treacherous Harbour Town course like men in need of iron lungs, Miller handled it as if it were a child's piggy bank, turning it upside down and shaking out the birdies. And to anyone who would listen, he had a simple message. He would win. "I've got my act together," he said. "I don't expect to play any better than I'm playing now."

The statement was characteristic of Miller, whose candor can be as startling as a police car in a rearview mirror. Only 26 years old, he has developed a positive approach. The day may come when people discuss the Miller Attitude the way they do the Vardon Grip. "Sometimes talking like that gets me in trouble," he said. "But it hasn't this year."

Hardly. Miller made history and a legion of autograph seekers when he won the first three tournaments of the season and eventually fashioned a stretch of 23 straight rounds of par or better. His victory in the Heritage gave him a few pennies less than $150,000 for the year, which is an average of nearly $17,000 for nine tournaments. Quickly he is transforming a lot of people into yesterday's heroes.

Only late in the third round did his gloss dull, after he had hit a four-iron into the cup for a hole in one on the par-3 7th, which upped his lead to those intimidating 10 strokes. His fans were saying that for his next trick Miller would walk on water, and momentarily the Californian was caught up in the euphoria. He lowered his guard and suddenly found himself backed against the ropes. "I was worried about UCLA," he admitted later. Instead of concentrating on the game at hand, he started listening to radio reports of the North Carolina State- UCLA semifinal from Greensboro, and on the 11th through the 15th holes he hit some shots the way Bill Walton would. He missed five straight greens, picked up a double bogey, three bogeys and a par, and the 10-stroke lead was down to four. "I had been yukking it up," he told newsmen later. "All of a sudden, a lot of my lead was gone. I felt like I was dragging an anchor around out there." Then he added, "I'll give you guys a good story if I blow the tournament tomorrow." Which, of course, he did not.

The Heritage is one of those weekly tour events that floats just below the level of a major championship. It is played on a course that Gary Player once called the best he ever had seen, 18 holes that wind through trees, sand traps, creeks and ponds, flanked by the homes of the wealthy, and finish up along the fringe of Calibogue Sound. Jack Nicklaus, having had a hand in designing it, judiciously skips playing on it. Last week was the third straight time he did not play at Hilton Head Island, possibly figuring that solving his income tax was enough irritation for this time of year. Harbour Town's greens are small, its fairways are narrow, and mistakes are costly, as even Miller discovered.

Manufacturing an instant heritage is one of the byproducts of the event. This was only the sixth Heritage Classic, but officials have found an obscure reason to affix the date 1786 to any mention of it, that being the year South Carolina's first golf club was founded. The tournament presents a Scottish motif, and tartan is to the Heritage what green is to the Masters. Scottish bagpipers parade around the grounds each evening and the marshals wear knitted caps, replicas of Scottish tam-o'-shanters, and carry wooden staffs. It all seems a bit contrived for the Deep South, like dressing Rhett Butler up in a kilt.

Early in the week some people were talking about what was wrong with Lee, Bruce and Tom instead of what was right with Johnny. Last year Lee Trevino, Bruce Crampton and Tom Weiskopf won $730,000 and 10 tournaments, and Weiskopf also won the British Open and the World Series of Golf. Now, after a quarter of the season, the trio is playing like the Three Mouseketeers. None of them has won a tournament and their total income is only $63,500.

The inscrutable Trevino was not entered at Hilton Head, but Crampton and Weiskopf were and they offered reasons for their stuttering starts. Crampton blamed some misplaced timing and Weiskopf had an injury that stuck out like a sore thumb. In fact, it was a sore thumb.