Breakfast With Benz U.S. Open at Oakmont retrospective: Johnny Miller's historic win in 1973

Next week, Oakmont Country Club will host its 10th U.S. Open championship. This week at “Breakfast with Benz,” we are flashing back to memories of each of the past five U.S. Opens that have been held at the course in our podcast series with David Moore. He is a golf historian and the curator of collections at Oakmont.

We begin our series with a look back at the 1973 event, featuring Johnny Miller’s unforgettable 63 during the final round on Sunday, which pushed him to victory.

When you bring up championship events in Pittsburgh sports, there are always individual moments that stand out in history.

Super Bowl XL has Willie Parker’s touchdown run. Super Bowl XLIII had Santonio Holmes’ touchdown catch and James Harrison’s interception return. Bill Mazeroski’s homer defined the 1960 World Series, as Marc-Andre Fleury’s save sealed the 2009 Stanley Cup.

Similarly, if you bring up the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, one name and one number pops into everyone’s head: “Johnny Miller — 63.”

At the time, when Miller shot his fabled 63 on Sunday of that year’s event, no one had ever gone that low in a major. It was a record that stayed on the books until Branden Grace shot a 62 at the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in England.

The round allowed Miller to win the first of his two majors and one of 25 victories on the PGA Tour, as he claimed the title with a four-day, 5-under-par total of 279.

What made Miller’s final round even more impressive is that he started the day six strokes back. The Brigham Young alum was in a four-way tie for 13th place at three strokes over par.

Not only that, but those he had to pass on the leaderboard to claim victory read like a roll call of World Golf Hall of Famers. Lee Trevino, Gary Player, Tom Weiskopf, Julius Boros, defending champion Jack Nicklaus and Western Pa. golfing legend Arnold Palmer all stood between Miller and the title when he got to the course Sunday morning.

However, when the dust settled, Miller ended with a one-shot win over John Schlee, two over Weiskopf, and three over Nicklaus, Trevino and Palmer.

“Everybody, all the players, are kind of looking at the leaderboard, seeing more red numbers go up under Johnny’s name. They’re thinking, ‘What the (heck) is he doing? How is he doing this?’ The players understood just how special it was,” Moore said. “But I think the crowd at the end of the day was probably still thinking, ‘Hey, Arnold’s going to win this. Or, ‘Hey, Jack’s going to come back and do something special. Maybe Lee Trevino will do something special.’”

Miller played with Palmer the first two days of the event and would later recount how difficult it was to play in front of a wildly supportive pro-Palmer crowd.

“He said, ‘You have no idea how difficult it is playing with Arnold Palmer anywhere, let alone in a U.S. Open in his hometown.’ He said it’s probably a couple shot difference on your score because there are so many people following Arnie,” Moore said. “Because of that, they’re moving ahead of Arnie. So they’re getting in the way of you performing. It’s no different than, in modern times, it would be like the crowd following Scottie Scheffler, or Rory McIlroy or Tiger Woods.”

Some of the events that led to Miller’s memorable Sunday make the round even more legendary. For instance, Miller forgot his yardage book on Saturday, which put him in a bad spot after being tied for third place at 2-under through Friday’s action.

“He sends his wife, Linda, back to the hotel and basically says, ‘Honey, go get my yardage book. Do whatever you have to do to get it and get back here as fast as possible.’ With all the traffic, it took nine holes for Linda to get back,” Moore said. “So he goes out, struggles in the very beginning. He’s 5-over-par after six holes, and he really saves this tournament on the seventh. He makes a really long par putt to kind of stop the bleeding, and then he makes an eagle on nine to go out in 38.”

Through 18 holes, though, Miller posted a 76 in Round 3. Because of how badly things went Saturday, Miller made some pre-round adjustments that ended up paying off.

“He opened his stance slightly. That kind of freed up the swing a little bit more,” Moore explained. “He gets to the first tee. He tees off about an hour and a half before Arnold Palmer and Julius Boros. He starts birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie. So he’s four holes in. Arnie and Julius are about to tee off, and all of a sudden, he goes from completely out of it to right in the mix.”

Also, in the podcast, Moore and I discuss the overall history of the U.S. Open at Oakmont, what the television coverage was like for that final round and the Nicklaus-Palmer dynamic at the time.

On Tuesday, we’ll discuss the 1983 U.S. Open at Oakmont and a similar effort by Larry Nelson.