Johnny Miller is known for the candidness he brings to his golf commentating job with NBC. That certainly continues in his book I Call the Shots. Teaming up with Guy Yocom for the book, Miller gives us more of what keeps us tuning into NBC when he’s, well, calling the shots.
If you’re a fan of Johnny Miller, then this book is required reading. It’s an extra strong dose of Johnny. It’s got the same kind of candidness that got him in hot water on a couple of occasions but to a level of detail that he simply can’t get into while he’s on his TV job.
Chapter List
- Welcome to Smackdown Golf: The Decline of Etiquette in Today’s Game
- The Dreaded “C” Word: A Primer on Choking
- Calling the Shots: Adventures in Broadcasting
- Can Tiger Catch Jack: The Case for an Emphatic “No”
- Contenders or Pretenders: Why Tiger Makes Winning Look Easy
- For Better or Worse: Surviving the “Grand Canyon Syndrome”
- Courses for Horses: Examining our Fields of Dreams
- Is the PGA Tour a Closed Shop? Why Talent is Not Being Served
- Sorenstam and the True Principle Axiom: What We Learned from Her Colonial Experiment
- Golf’s Greatest Generation: A Front-Row Seat to Greatness
- A Real Junior High: Paving a Path for Kids
- Rules for Fools: Time to Clean Up the Rules of Golf
- Moving Forward: Some 2020 Visions
- Afterword
- Afterword for the Paperback Edition
The Good
- I’ve been a fan of Miller for quite a while and this book gives me a lot of what I like: Johnny Miller talking golf.
- It’s well written and has good flow. The chapters are normally broken into sections, making it easy to read in small sessions, if that’s your thing (I like to read before bed, so 15-30 minutes is my typical stretch).
- In typical fashion, Miller isn’t afraid to address the issues that have drawn criticism over the years and isn’t afraid to speak his mind on issues that might draw him some new criticism.
- He speaks honestly about what needs fixing in the game of golf, including improvements he’d make to the Rules, to the PGA Tour, and to junior golf programs.
- In the paperback edition, Miller included a second afterword section to revisit some of the predictions he made in the original book.
The Bad
I usually try hard to find something to criticize, but I’m coming up short. It comes down to one thing: do you like Johnny Miller? If you don’t, then don’t pick up this book because it’s simply him talking golf, just like he does on TV several times each year, just in greater detail.
Now that I think about it, there is one thing. In the chapter 4, “Can Tiger Catch Jack: The Case for an Emphatic ‘No’“, Miller spent the first half of the chapter pointing out how great Tiger Woods is, followed by several “what if” questions, such as “Will he burn out?” It definitely didn’t feel anything like an emphatic “No” to me. Sure, there are questions, but I wouldn’t call it a “case”. I’d call it more of a hunch.
A minor point for sure, but something I mentally criticized at the time.
Conclusion
As I said in both The Good and The Bad sections, it kind of comes down to whether you like Johnny Miller, because he’s what you’re getting here. This book is a golf personality talking golf.
Since I like Johnny Miller, I thought this was a great read. If you don’t really know of him, or don’t have an opinion either way, I still think you’ll like this book. It gives insight from a man who made golf his life at an early age, played professionally at a very high level, and who has become one of the best golf color analysts ever.
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REALLY! I can agree, you either like Johnny or you don’t. In my case, I like Johnny as a golfer. He did some outstanding things on the golf course, but as a golf commentator, well I best describe it by saying… Give Me A Friggin Break!
Johnny came up in golf at the time Arnie and Jack were winding down and golf was going through the boring stage that took Tiger to get golf back to being watched my millions. I don’t think Johnny being a color analysts is cutting it either. Remarks like “he hit that shot about two groves too high on the club to make it a great shot”…do nothing to explain to golfers or non-golfers watching on TV WTF he is talking about. Even the tour players question his description of a shot or a putt. In a time where golf is in tremendous need of more explanation to golf viewers on why people play the game, I don’t think Johnny cuts it. He was a great golfer, but he needs to give us a friggin break on the jargon that he only knows what it means.
His book has great insight into how Johnny sees golf, but it falls short on being a glossary or dictionary to the terms he uses to explain how golf is played.
Fair points, Scot. Johnny Miller definitely doesn’t appeal to everyone.
And he does have his own vocabulary that he kind of goes into that a little in the book. That was a fairly interesting section where he talked about putting a personalized stamp on his style with his own words and phrases.
I am on your side as far as being Johnny Miller fan. I can’t stand most of the commentators for most of our sports, especially baseball and football, but I do enjoy listening to Miller.
I may have to check this book out.
If you like Miller, I think you’ll like the book, Saturday Golfer.
I respect Johnny as a golfer and I did like this read, but after his comments at the U.S. Open about Rocco I’m becoming a little skeptical that he’s good for television. Hard the defend this one as a tasteful comment: “the guy who cleans Tiger’s swimming pool.”