USGA's 'Everything-Man' Miller Dies At 85


At the St. Louis Country Club, site of the 1947 U.S. Open, Eddie Miller, center, used a tape measure on the final hole to determine who would putt first. Lew Worsham and Sam Snead were both less than 3 feet from the hole. Snead, however, eventually missed and lost. (USGA Photo Archives)


By David Shefter, USGA
For 40 years, Charles E. "Eddie" Miller served the USGA the way a utility infielder assists a baseball team. In other words, he did a little of everything, from taking dictation to buying the prizes to ensuring each entry form for a championship was filed properly and on time. He helped out in the press room and assisted in getting press releases out to news organizations.

Miller, who was hired in 1939 by USGA Executive Director Joe Dey at the princely sum of $18 a week, died Aug. 7 at the age of 85 in Pinehurst, N.C. Funeral services will be held Saturday (Aug. 16) in his hometown of Glen Cove, N.Y., on Long Island.

Nobody in the history of the USGA has had a longer tenure than Miller, who worked for two executive directors (Dey, P.J. Boatwright) and 21 USGA presidents. He retired from the Association in 1979 and moved with his wife, Jessie, to the Sand Hills region of North Carolina where the couple had a house along the fifth fairway of the Seven Lakes Golf Club.

Miller's official title at the USGA was executive assistant, but he had his hands in so many areas of the Association's operation. According to a retirement article written by Hannigan in the July, 1979 issue of Golf Journal, both Dey and Miller "could spot a typographical error in the 6-point type of a U.S. Open entry form from any distance up to 20 feet. It was impossible to be near them without becoming infused with their conviction that what was going on - be it making pairings for the third round of the U.S. Open at the end of a 16-hour day or reading final proofs for the Rules of Golf booklet - mattered terribly, as much as anything could possibly matter."

Miller's great legacy was developing a system for local and sectional qualifying for USGA championships, most notably the U.S. Open. When competitors tried to find an edge by seeking a qualifying site that might have more spots to the U.S. Open, it was Miller who often found the loopholes and straightened the situation out by making sure the golfer went to the local or sectional site in his area. To get his geography correct, Miller would apply pins to a map showing all the sectional qualifying sites.

He processed the entries, got the pairings out, collected the results and incredibly a list of the 150 competitors appeared from the 4,000-plus entries he carefully inspected. Miller's keen eyes also could immediately uncover any inconsistencies with the entry form. If he had to make a long-distance phone call to a competitor to get the registration form fixed, he did it.

One year, a competitor in Seattle, Wash., wanted to fax in his entry form for the U.S. Amateur. The USGA did not take faxes (and still doesn't), so the man made arrangements for a friend in Bethlehem, Pa., to personally take the faxed copy in a limousine to Golf House in Far Hills, N.J., and hand it to Miller by 5 p.m.

At the famous 1947 U.S. Open, the one in which Sam Snead lost a playoff to Lew Worsham at St. Louis Country Club in Clayton, Mo., it was Miller who came out to the 18th hole and did the measurement on which player was away. Snead had putted his ball within 2½ feet of the hole after Worsham had sent his third shot, a short pitch, to about the same distance. Worsham then asked the USGA official in the group, Isaac Grainger, to measure who was away. Grainger called in Miller who did the required task and pointed out that Snead was, indeed, away. Snead proceeded to miss the putt. Worsham holed his putt for par to win the championship.

He also recalled a match between Luke Barnes and Bill Campbell in the 1947 U.S. Amateur at Del Monte Golf and Country Club in Pebble Beach, Calif. The match lasted 25 holes and finished up in near darkness. Miller said that spectators following the match in their cars used their headlights to illuminate the greens so the two competitors to see the hole.

As a boy, Eddie Miller grew up caddieing at the old Women's National Golf Club on Long Island. It was there that he once caddied for 1898 U.S. Amateur champion Findley Douglas. Back then, Miller would often inquire about job possibilities to the members, but nothing every came to fruition until Dey came calling.

"I loved golf, but I never dreamed in a million years that I would be associated with the USGA," said Miller during an interview for a USGA oral history. Miller had to commute the 25 miles from his home on Long Island to the USGA's headquarters in Manhattan every day.

Back then, the USGA had only a handful of employees. By the time he retired, the number had grown from eight to 130 staffers. Finances were also much different back then as well. In 1940, Miller recalled that then-USGA president Harold W. Pierce scolded Dey about sending two memos in one day in two separate 3-cent envelopes.

Miller served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II before returning to the USGA. He is survived by his wife, Jessie; his two sons, Charles E. Miller Jr. and Robert Miller; and two daughters, Janice Evans and Joan Ferngren; eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.