Miller, Faldo bring unique expertise to the booth

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Badz/PGA TOUR

Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo have made the transition from major champions to top analysts.

The unvarnished honesty and certainty with which Nick Faldo and Johnny Miller talk about themselves underscores their strongest qualifications for holding down televised golf's most visible jobs.

As the lead analysts for their respective affiliations --- Miller on NBC and Faldo on CBS and GOLF CHANNEL --- the two former major champions have continually exhibited a proclivity for talking as good a game as they once played. This will be readily apparent throughout the extended coverage of THE PLAYERS Championship this year on GOLF CHANNEL and NBC.

Miller and Faldo will have ample time to espouse their views on the PGA TOUR's flagship event, on the architectural merits of THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass and on the game at large, overflowing as it is today with talent. They will be insightful and entertaining. They know what they're talking about even if the game being practiced by today's brand of professional differs from the style of play where the two excelled.

The duo, known in their prime for their extraordinary levels of precision, might not personally identify with the 21st century power game, but they understand it.

"The big thing is it's a different game now than when I played and when I started in television, so I'm always learning," said Miller, who turned 62 on April 29 and began working for NBC in 1993. "You see the direction the game is going and the approach might be different but the game evolves and you evolve with it, and it's my job then to explain that to the audience at home."

Miller, who lives in Utah and is NBC's weekend analyst, has earned a reputation for no-nonsense commentary that occasionally rankles various constituencies, though rare is the assertion that he ever misses the mark. He won 24 PGA TOUR titles, including the 1973 U.S. Open and '76 British Open. He's also won over millions of viewers.

"Johnny doesn't have a filter between his brain and mouth. What he's thinks comes out," said Tom Roy, Executive Producer of NBC golf telecasts. "Most analysts in sports sort of couch what they're thinking. But Johnny is not afraid to tell it like it is. He also is prescient about things unfolding on the golf course. A big reason is he really does his homework more than anybody I've ever known. He's charting the course in the morning and doing everything to prepare -- the total homeworkaholic. He also knows the mental and physical reaction of the golfers from his days of being in the hunt."

"I'm never looking to be critical but to try to explain things to the viewers, because that is my audience," Miller said.

Faldo, who is GOLF CHANNEL's early-round analyst, is making similar inroads.

"You have two guys who pretty much say what's on their mind. They are straight forward, and viewers like them for that," said GOLF CHANNEL producer Brandt Packer.

Faldo, 51, won three Masters and three British Opens among his nine TOUR victories and collected 27 international titles. He captained the European Ryder Cup Team in 2008, losing to the United States at Valhalla. The native Brit, who has a residence in Orlando, is in his third year with the two networks after breaking into TV with ABC in 2005. Like Miller, he isn't oblivious to the shifting style of play on the TOUR.

"They play a different game, they pump it out there 300 yards now and do things we didn't do ... one heck of an advantage," Faldo said. "But where to hit it, where to miss it, understanding the greens, the slopes ... not new to me, but this has been magnified. Does this strategy still work? Yes it does.

"I wouldn't say that being in the booth has taught me things that I didn't know, but it has emphasized things I did know."

If golf broadcasting has replaced competition for the World Golf Hall of Famers --- inducted side by side in 1998 in St. Augustine, Fla. --- it is not their only connection to the game. Both men are enthusiastic golf course designers, though Faldo is arguably more immersed in the trade, with projects "in all four corners of the world."

Faldo, who also lends his name to a collection of golf institutes, calls design "a passion and a business. It's really starting to get exciting. And we are now getting more involved in the total package, everything from design to construction to management to residential as well. We want to become a one-stop shop. That's the way to go, we think."

Miller, by his own choice, has decided to cut back on design work, though he still has ambitions. He plans to team with former TOUR player John Fought on some future projects. And his sons are involved in his overarching business, Johnny Miller Enterprises, which Miller formed 35 years ago to act as the business arm to his golf career and encompasses a range of business from golf course design and construction to business opportunities.

His son, Andy, who played the TOUR in 2003, is in his second year attending the Architecture School of Boston on the way to joining his brothers, John and Scott.

"Andy is very artistic. He might be the first guy to ever design both a golf course and a clubhouse," Miller said proudly.

Miller, who with his wife, Linda, has six children and 18 grandchildren, is big on youth. Twenty years ago he started the eponymous Johnny Miller Junior Golf Foundation in California. Not long ago, he founded the Utah Junior Golf Foundation. He also hosts a charity event, the Champions Challenge, at one of his course designs, Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah.

"Believe it or not, I do like to get away from the game a little bit," said Miller, who also has surf and turf interests. He is an avid fisherman, and he has for years enjoyed buying and fixing up farms and ranches. "You know, I keep thinking I'm going to pull back on the TV stuff, but I love doing it, and I feel like I have things to say, things to share with golf fans."

Faldo harbors a similar sentiment. "I'm having fun with it, and it gives me a chance to keep my fingers into the competitive aspect of things. I like doing television, and I want to be good at it, and I am going to try to get better."

For however long they work in broadcasting, one thing is certain: Faldo and Miller are going to continue to do things their way. And that's what viewers want.

Oscar Wilde said it best, something the two champions seem to understand instinctively and which they project effortlessly from their TV perches: "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken."