2 weeks Ago By USA TODAY Sports - Golfweek
Of all the competitors at the National Finals of the Drive, Chip and Putt at Augusta National Golf Club , only one of them will be named for 18-time major winner Jack Nicklaus and share the last name of a two-time major winner – Johnny Miller – to boot. Nicklaus Miller of Provo, Utah, son of Todd, director of golf at BYU, and grandson of Hall of Famer and former NBC lead analyst Johnny, qualified for Sunday’s competition in September by winning the Boys 12-13 Division in the Pacific Northwest at Chambers Bay in University Place, Washington. “I'm really excited, especially to be able to go with my entire family and have my grandpa there,” Nicklaus Miller said.
“It should be really, really fun.” He'll have a chance to do something his grandfather never could quite do: win at Augusta National. Fifty years ago, Nicklaus’s fishing and hunting buddy, Grandpa Johnny, and his namesake dueled at the famed club – along with Tom Weiskopf – in one of the most memorable Masters in tournament history with Jack coming out on top for his fifth of what would be six Green Jackets.
Johnny came close – three times he finished second at Augusta National (1971, ’75 and 1981) – but he never got both arms in the Green Jacket. Still, he won the 1973 U.S.
Open and 1976 British Open among 24 Tour titles and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1998. He and Jack developed a close friendship. “I love Jack,” Johnny said.
“He lost his father and he looked at me as sort of a father figure in many ways, even though I wasn’t that much older,” Jack Nicklaus recalled on Friday. “But he looked at me for a lot of things.” And when it was time for Johnny’s daughter-in-law and son, Todd, to pick a name for their first son, the name Nick emerged as a favorite.
“I was like, ‘I don't really love the name Nick, but if we were to name him after Nicklaus, Jack Nicklaus, and spell it like Jack Nicklaus, I'd be fine with it,” Todd recalled. “And we talked to my dad about it and he liked it and so he called Jack and said, ‘Hey, just so you know, we're naming one of our grandkids Nicklaus.’ ” “It was sort of my way of honoring him,” Johnny said.
And what was Big Jack’s response to Johnny? “It’s very flattering,” Jack noted, while on site at the Valero Texas Open. “I said, ‘What’s wrong with Johnny? He said, ‘He likes you better!’ ” When Nicklaus Miller was born, the Nicklauses sent towels and some other baby gear embroidered with the Golden Bear logo and the newborn’s name. Three years later, Jack and Barbara flew to Utah to introduce Johnny when he was inducted into the Utah Golf Hall of Fame.
A picture was snapped of Jack, Johnny and Nicklaus. What’s it like to have a name with a combined 20 majors to its credit? “I think it's really cool because I mean it's one of the best golfers of all time,” Nicklaus Miller said. “And then you’ve got my grandpa’s name, which is, just to have that name is so cool.
” Nicklaus has prepared for the Drive, Chip and Putt as if he were playing in any other tournament. But he did get a few tips from his dad and grandpa. “He’s at that age where he wants to tell me you’re an old guy, quit trying to change me, you know,” Johnny said.
“I think he knows that I sort of know what I’m doing.” Perhaps his best advice? “Starting from a young age, he kind of told me like, ‘Hey, if you put enough work in, you can do it, too,” Nicklaus Miller said. For the DCP, his grandpa advised him to hit his low cutter, what he dubbed “his money shot,” for his first drive and make sure he finds the grid, and then he can tee it a little bit higher and bomb away.
For the chip, Nicklaus said he’s still determining whether to bump it short of the green and run it up the hill or fly it over the false front. “We've been working on a couple of different chips,” Todd said. “I'm hoping he goes later in the rotation for the kids he's with, so he gets to watch a few of them beforehand.
And then the putt we've watched the videos of past years to try to get a feel for it.” Grandpa Johnny told him that he’d already made it through the toughest part — qualifying — and to go and enjoy the whole experience. This may be the final time that Johnny, 77, visits Augusta National.
“Unless Nick qualified to play in the Masters, I don't think he's going out there again,” Todd said. “He's reached the time in his career that he's a ‘No man.’ He used to always be ‘Yes,’ all my life.
Anything I ever asked him was, yes, I'll do it if it helps you or helps the (BYU) program or whatever helps the kids, I'll do it. But now he's like, ‘Hey, I'm retired. I'm going to hang out with my kids and my family and I'm not going to travel much.
” He wouldn’t miss the chance to show Nicklaus around Augusta National and watch him try to live up to not one but two famous names. “He’s at a great time where he can do magical things with golf,” Johnny said. This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Meet Nicklaus Miller, whose namesakes won a combined 20 major titles.
