Johnny: “This thing is Johnny Miller, it’s totally Johnny Miller"

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I received a few strange looks on the train this morning when I laughed out loud at this Johnny Miller remark in Richard Sandomir's NY Times story about Johnny's special notebook:

He used to carry a surveyor’s tool to assess how putts would break, but last year he downloaded the Break Meter application to his iPhone. He demonstrated his toy in an NBC trailer, showing the angle and slope of a table and the linoleum floor.

“This thing is Johnny Miller, it’s totally Johnny Miller,” he said cheerfully as the iPhone registered its findings. “I don’t really need it, but it verifies things for me.”

And I let out a groan after this one:

Miller confessed to one weakness: “I don’t sit on the range all day and talk to players. My thing is to be more of an expert on the holes, to know what to watch out for, what not to hit, how the putts break and to know every bunker.”

He also knows that Nick Faldo, the lead golf analyst at CBS and the Golf Channel, has something he will never have: a knighthood, which was announced last week.

“Is CBS going to call him Sir Nick now?” Miller asked. “Jim Nantz might.”

Would he like to be Sir Johnny? “As long as it doesn’t take three divorces to get it,” Miller said, referring to his friend Faldo’s marital history. He smiled and said, “I guess that wasn’t a cool thing to say.”

Interviewing "At The Turn"

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I've never understood the big deal about talking to golfers mid-round, but for whatever reason it's been considered off-limits. Personally I think the NBA playoff telecasts are great fun thanks to the Coach interviews which, if nothing else, become an exercise in how little a coach will say. Even Stan Van Gundy!

Anyway, Golf Channel and the LPGA Tour are reviving the idea for this weekend's LPGA Championship.

During Saturday and Sunday’s live coverage of the McDonald’s LPGA Championship, Rich Lerner is scheduled to interview at least one player from the final four groups after completion of nine holes in a new feature titled, “At the Turn.” The new feature was first introduced during GOLF CHANNEL’s coverage of the LPGA Corning Classic in May.

GOLF CHANNEL / McDonald’s LPGA Championship TV Times

Saturday – Sunday 4 – 7 p.m. ET (Live)
7:30 – 10:30 p.m. ET (Live)

Sir Nick! Queen Recognizes Faldo's Contributions To Reviving American Golf

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Mark Reason reports that Nick Faldo has been knighted, the ultimate recognition of charitable works such as using your Ryder Cup captaincy to help dejected American males feel better about themselves or spending countless hours working for the Golf Channel.

Faldo said: "I was delighted to hear the news that I will be receiving a knighthood and am more than a little bit humbled. It has come as a real surprise and the reaction from my children, family and friends has made this a very special moment for me."

Faldo stressed that a large part of the honour was its recognition of the Faldo Series that works to inspire young golfers. But having stated his pleasure at becoming only the second British professional golfer to be knighted, he seemed a little flummoxed by the timing.

Reason has broken the news five hours ahead of the royal palace's embargo. There goes his knighthood!

"I've had a dream about 20 times where he comes to me and asks me for a lesson."

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Michael Bamberger theorizes about how Tiger found his swing at the Memorial, prints a cute rant from Hank Haney and shares this from Johnny:

Johnny Miller, the winner of the 1973 U.S. Open and lead analyst at Bethpage for NBC, has long been Tiger's most incisive critic (and, at times among the microphone crowd, his only objective fan). Last week, before the Memorial, Miller said in an interview, "I've had a dream about 20 times where he comes to me and asks me for a lesson." In Miller's dream he instructs Woods to hit shots with a slight pause at the top of his swing, as he did from 1997 through 2000. Miller also asks Woods to soften the squat move he has been making in recent years, where his head and body come too close to the ball on the downswing and he gets in his own way.

You know Johnny, if you ever went out on the driving range I'm sure Tiger would have made time for you.

Barkley Regrets Taking Eight Tedious Episodes To Not Get Better

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Actually, according to Gerard Gallagher in a lengthy piece featuring quotes from Charles Barkley and Hank Haney, about every element of the recently shuttered reality show is addressed (well, except if cameras were on hand this night.)

Charles Barkley gets golf tips wherever he goes, even the dry cleaners. He walks through the supermarket and they wish him luck.

"Little old ladies walking the street want to give me advice, and it makes me laugh," Barkley said. "Everybody gives me golf advice."

And...

"I felt bad, to be honest with you, that I didn't improve more for him," said Barkley.

"People were surprised that somebody at my level of success through my life would basically put himself in a situation where you can be humiliated on a weekly basis," he said.

So they try to help him, at the cleaners and the supermarket and on the street...

Rymer Vaults To Prominent Role After Surviving Golf Channel's Most Vile Hazing

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I can't think of a more deserving promotion after suffering through Comcast's in-house version of waterboarding: hosting not one, but two Golf Channel reality shows.

Charlie Rymer Joins GOLF CHANNEL On-Air Team

ORLANDO, Fla. (May 18, 2009) – GOLF CHANNEL announced the addition of Charlie Rymer to the network’s on-air team as an analyst for Golf Central, Live From telecasts and live tournament coverage.

An accomplished player, Rymer spent more than 10 years playing professional golf, with a third place at the 1995 Shell Houston Open his best PGA TOUR finish. He also won the 1994 South Carolina Classic on the Nationwide Tour, and as an amateur, was a two-time All American at Georgia Tech.

Prior to joining GOLF CHANNEL in a full-time capacity, Rymer treated golf fans to his quick wit and “down home” humor as a sports commentator for ESPN since 1998. A native of Fort Mill, S.C., Rymer also contributed to GOLF CHANNEL projects such as Road Trip: Myrtle Beach and served as a co-host on Big Break Prince Edward Island.

"These comments hurt the game."

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I was traveling most of the day and haven't followed the David Feherty situation very closely, but just taking a quick look at the wires it appears that while his apology was prompt, the Wanda Sykes controversy is bringing him back into the national debate over what constitutes tasteless. (You don't say bomb on an airplane and you don't joke about wanting to see die...is that hard enough?)

Based on what Michael Hiestand writes in a thoughtful and surprisingly-long-by-USA Today standards piece, the next few days will determine where the Feherty situation heads and his name being dragged into the Sykes situation may prove problematic. Unlike past CBS announcer brouhahas, Feherty's inflammatory comments were written instead of uttered, ultimately making it hard to see this as a well-intentioned joke gone bad.

Ron Sirak at Golf World comments on the situation, and compared to everything else I've read and the critical emails I've received for daring to touch a golf story making national news, he offers a nuanced and insightful take as someone who has interviewed Feherty. His conclusions ultimately raise more questions than the apology tried to put to sleep.

My first thought was that Feherty, who is known for his humor, may not be as sensitive to this issue because he did not grow up in the United States. But then I remembered an interview I did with him more than a decade ago in which he talked about growing up in Northern Ireland during "the troubles," the political violence between Catholics and Protestants centered around English rule of the North. David should know better. He saw first-hand the bloody results of extremism.

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto drags Feherty into the Sykes mess and wonders why liberals aren't more upset at her remarks. He'd have a little more credibility if he didn't spell Feherty as if he were some distant relative of Rick Fehr.

Mike Lupica takes the same stance, and several others and I stopped reading because he was going all Nuke LaLoosh on us and I was getting dizzy.

Feherty Apology; Disaster Averted!

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Doug Ferguson reports:

“This passage was a metaphor meant to describe how American troops felt about our 43rd president,” Feherty said in a statement. “In retrospect, it was inappropriate and unacceptable, and has clearly insulted Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid, and for that, I apologize. As for our troops, they know I will continue to do as much as I can for them both at home and abroad.”