Johnny, Ian Poulter Spat Developing Just In Time For The Ryder Cup

If only we could get Johnny to reply on Twitter...or even know what Twitter is! Following round three of today's BMW Championship.

Apparently someone conveyed to Ian Poulter what was said on the broadcast. The tweets:

Comments

[GolfFan]

Ian Poulter is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Johnny Miller talks such bollocks nearly ALL the time.

[Second City Golfer]

Johnny Miller is an idiot.

[COB]

Johnny Miller is the best announcer in golf. Ian Poulter's skin will thicken up once he wins something.

[vwgolfer]

Johnny shot a low round in a major once.

[curry]

Johnny Miller is the worst announcer in golf. Give me Faldo anyday.

[Average Golfer]

Bollocks, indeed, bollocks. I like/hate Johnny though.

[RM]

what did johnny say?

[jeff]

Johnny Miller, for a couple of years, was as good as anyone, ANYONE, who ever played the game. Add to that his ability to articulate his thoughts and opinions in an engaging manner and he sits atop the roster of players turned commentators. I love Poulter actually, but Johnny is right, he isn't a great ball striker. Live with it or get better. Johnny is an easy target, but the worst announcer? Talk about bollocks.

[Jeffrey]

No foul, they're both idiots.

[jjshaka]

I thought it really was a classless thing to say without going into specific details of Poulters craptacular tee to green game.
Generally like Miller but his M.O is getting stale.

[digsouth]

I like both of them.

ds

[Del the Funk]

I like Johhny.

Poulter is a preener, and for no good reason.

Go Johnny...

[Steven T.]

What does Sandra Bullock have to do with golf?

[Elwood Fussel]

Johnny Miller was the man in his day. He's easily the best in the business right now.

[vwgolfer]

I like Johnny as an announcer.

[DMazza]

Poulter is 108th in driving distance,119th in driving accuracy and
177th in greens in reg.
That is downright crappy ball-striking relative to his peers. I like it when Miller points this stuff out.

[Used to be Former S&T Convert]

I am not a Johnny fan, however his credentials as a "ball striker" are beyond reproach. I would imagine he knows a ball striker when he sees one.

[digsouth]

The other think is that these 2 have so much in common......bad pants.


digsouth

[Marky Mark]

What Johnny probably meant to say was that Ian Poulter suffers from Luke Donald Disease (never living up to the hype but cashing big checks).

But then you would have both Poulter AND Donald going on major Twitter spams against Miller.

[MRP]

Johnny Miller had a stretch where he just may have been the best golfer on the planet. He is a multiple winner of major championships and a Hall of Famer. Poulter has won once on the PGA Tour. Perhaps Poulter should listen for a change and work on what Johnny says he needs work on. Or I suppose he can just continue to focus on matching his hot pink pants with his golf shoes and continue to be the new "Peacock of the Fairways".

And oh yeah, Johnny Miller is the BEST announcer in the world. Don't believe me? Well, just ask Johnny!!

[jjshaka]

DMazza-
I wish Miller had pointed out those specifics- it would have driven home the point much better.

[Scott]

Hey at least Miller didn't call Poulter the worst ball striker on tour as Charlie Wi did with Aaron Baddeley. And I think he said Mike Weir was ONE of the worst. Why is that not getting more attention?

[Wisconsin Reader]

In the early 70's Miller was "Hogan like" in his ball striking. He does a decent job as NBC's "anchor" but is clearly past his prime. In Johnny's competitive era ball striking was revered and players like Palmer and Watson were derided by their peers as "just scramblers." . . .

Ball striking is way easier today - with the equipment and course conditioning improvements - putting and short game proficiency is now the way to success as green speeds and firmness increase. . . Tiger, Phil, Stricker, Donald have been near the top in short game skill and they are also the top players. They play a game that Johnny Miller was largely unfamiliar with.

[The O]

The exact quote was, I believe, that Poulter was a "poor" ball-striker. Poulter isn't, statistically, the best with the long game, but poor struck me as unnecessarily dicky. Of course, Johnny is also the one who compared being a good putter to being a woman, so we know his biases. I would love to see Poults take a bigger Twitter-swing at Miller (or even mention him in his next victory speech), and see if gets his temple garments in a bunch.

[Tim in Hoylake]

Weir was, at one time, the top ball striker (according to Nick Price - also not a slouch in that department). I remember a wet and windy day out west one year where he came from 71st to 2nd, in a 36 hole Sunday. Of course, that was then, this is now. I think his concentration is somewhat amiss, along with his ball striking ability.

[DMazza]

The O: If you go after yarmulkes and crucifixes, you could complete the religious bigotry Triple
Crown!

[East End Golfer]

July 31, 2010: "Johnny Miller says Tiger Woods is an 'ordinary golfer'" Miller has a tendency towards hyperbole and overstatement.

[F. X. Flinn]

wgolfer -- at Oakmont for the women's open this year he described his low round there in the US Open as 'anomalous' so everyone who wants to mock him on that should get over it -- he has. I'd rather listen to Miller than anyone else these days.

[The O]

@DMazza, I'm am completely even-handed in my treatment of all supersticions.

[pt]

with those stats how can you say Miller is wrong??

[Chad]

Ian already deleted those tweets. Good work on the screengrab.

Ian seems to be touchy all the time. He pisses and moans quite a bit on Twitter and of course would trip out about Johnny saying anything bad about him.

Did you guys see Casey say something along the lines of "I bet Johnny is saying something. I bet he's critiquing me for not being on the range now." It was when they showed him on camera waiting for DJ to finish 18 and see if there would be a playoff. Pretty funny. The players clearly seem to regard Johnny as a blowhard.

vwgolfer said it best: "Johnny shot a low round in a major once." That's his entire credentials.

[Willie]

Johnny shot a low round in a major?

[The O]

If he shot a low round in a major, then he should mention it occasionally.

[Del the Funk]

Chad, think again. (maybe you were being facetious?)

Johnny had 25 tour wins including the US Open, and The Open Championship. He once won 8 times in one season (1974). 23 years elapsed between his first and last win (when he was basically a part-time player). In 1966 he finished 8th in the US Open when he was a college freshman. In his Open Championship he shot 66 the last day to win by 6. At Phoenix in '75 he shot 24-under and beat the field by 14. The next week he won Tuscon by 9! (all 8 rounds in the 60's, shot a 61 at both events...and was -49 in aggregatge!!)

Sure, Johnny sticks his foot in his mouth now and then, but he's imminently qualified to dish on what's going on between the ropes -- and between the ears.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Chad, that isn't his only credential. C'mon, he's got 25 PGA Tour wins and two majors - a heck of a lot more than Casey, Poulter, and 99% of the PGA Tour today.

[Press Agent]

Johnny played in an era when there was no competition. He was good, but he was not good for very long, and when he went south, he went way way way south. Now, to see him swing a club is like watching a train wreck, it's very bad. To watch him putt is even worse.

In the booth, he's a disaster. This weekend he made so many bad calls, it started to be funny.

"that sounded fat" - Johnny Miller

- Ball lands 2 feet from the pin.... awkward silence....

[The Q]

Sorry, but JM is provocative and insightful.

I'll give an example....a few years back, for some reason, maybe because it was a Golf Channel telecast, Johnny and Nick were co-commentators for about 10 minutes (anyone remember?).

Tiger is hitting out of a green side bunker and Johnny says "Tiger must have hit a pebble in the sand, which caused the errant shot."

Nick (who I also quite like) kind of mocked Johnny by saying "really, you could see that? thats pretty amazing...."

Anyway, the end of the round, Tiger is being interviewed and mentions his bogey on the hole, and says "Well, coming out of the bunker I caught a stone or pebble on my club-face and couldn't get up and down.

I thought, "hey that Johnny Miller is pretty friggin' good to have caught that which most wouldn't see."

I know he goes off on strange tangents, but generally he adds to the telecast and I like it when he dares critique players games.

Also, back in 05, he predicted TW would NOT pass Jack, but would pass Snead for tournaments won.

He took heat for that one, but now looks prescient.

[Del the Funk]

Press Agent, from 1971 to 1980 all the money titles were split between only 3 players....can you name those players?

Good color Q. Remember way back when Tiger won a tourney in 1996 and said he only had his "B- game" or something like that. The players went bonkers but Johnny backed him. At the time Johnny said he thought Tiger would win 60 events before he was done. The players thought Johnny was nuts...

...apparently not.