Nicklaus Miller has a name with 20 major championships between them.
The grandson of World Golf Hall of Famer and two-time major champion Johnny Miller also has a first name for World Golf Hall of Famer and 18-time major champion Jack Nicklaus.
“We named him Nicklaus, not Nicholas, but Jack Nicklaus, and Miller, so he’s got, I’m always behind Jack so I’m 2nd place but the bottom line is, he’s got the right stuff,” said Johnny to the local ABC affiliate in Utah two years ago.
The 12-year-old from Provo, Utah, is proving to be a chip off the old block and living up to his lofty pedigree — he’s already a scratch golfer. He’ll have a chance to do something his grandfather never could quite do: win at Augusta National. Nicklaus recently qualified for the National Finals of the Drive, Chip & Putt the Sunday before the Masters gets underway in April after winning the Boys 12-13 Division in the Pacific Northwest at Chambers Bay in University Place, Washington.
Nicklaus’s father, Todd, the director of golf at Brigham Young University, said his son has been trying to qualify since he was seven or eight years old and had made it to the finals at Chambers Bay, where the winner advances to the National Final, before but this will be his first appearance at Augusta National.
An Augusta National spokesperson said that in April, Flynn Lewis, the grandson of 1987 low amateur Bob Lewis, became the first relative of a Masters competitor to compete in the DCP. Johnny Miller finished second four times at the Masters, including in 1975 to Jack Nicklaus, who won the Green Jacket a record six times. But that didn’t prevent Johnny from counting the Golden Bear as one of his closest friends.
Todd’s wife, Shannon, accompanied Nicklaus to the competition and was texting him videos while he hosted a recruit at BYU. Nicklaus didn’t get off to a promising start in the driving portion, which is usually his strong suit.
“He kind of hit a heel push, and it went out by like a yard,” recalled Todd of the first of three attempts to stay within the grid. “And so you could see in the video he kind of just dropped his head.”
But Nicklaus rallied to finish in the top three, chipped well enough, putted even better and when the scores were added up, he did just enough to eke out the victory.
“My wife texted me ‘YES,’ with about five exclamation points,” Todd said.
Nicklaus calls his grandpa after every competitive round for a debrief. “I’ll call him up and tell him how my game is going, and he’ll give me some suggestions over the phone,” he said, according to a story posted on the Drive, Chip & Putt website.
Imagine the call after advancing to Augusta was a pretty special one.
And Todd says a little bit of Johnny has rubbed off on his son.
“The cool thing about Nick is he’s got a lot of the characteristics of my dad. He he has a ton of confidence in what he’s doing, and got a great personality and quick wit. You know, sometimes he jabs the older guys at our home course at Riverside a little too much, and I have to tell him to back off a little bit. And that’s definitely a trait he gets more from my dad than he does me or my wife. And so it’s just kind of fun to see that. It’s fun to see him have a little bit of Johnny in him.”
Expect the whole Miller clan to make the pilgrimage to Augusta National, a place that always meant so much to Johnny during his career but sadly proved to be unrequited love.
“My wife hasn’t been to the Masters, and neither has Nick,” Todd said. “Even before he qualified [for the DCP], I kind of wanted to take my family out. My dad’s getting a little older, and so wanted to try to take my family out with my dad, if he can make it. And it was just great to have Nick qualified so we can, so we can all go out there and watch him.
“My dad doesn’t like to travel that much anymore since he retired,” Todd added, noting it’s been at least a decade since Johnny last attended the Masters. “I think he really wants to come out.”