Myles Miller adds honor on way to WSU
2011 KGA Junior Player of the Year
The summer of 2011 in Kansas junior golf was most certainly Miller time.
With a strong showing at this summer’s KGA Junior Amateur Championship and a dominate performance during “Junior Week” later at Mariah Hills, Wellington’s Myles Miller rose to the top of the standings and captured long-awaited KGA Junior Player of the Year honors.
Miller, now a freshman studying business finance at Wichita State University, was just a shot short of winning a second Junior Amateur Championship and later walked away with both the Section Team Individual title and the Match Play Championship in tallying 693 points for the 2011 season.
“Being junior player of the year was my goal this year and since I was 10 or 11 years old I’ve wanted to win junior player of the year,” the 18-year-old Miller said recently as he prepared for his third fall tournament as a member of the Shocker golf team. “I played good all year. That was
my goal going into the season.”
Miller surprised many, including himself, when he won the 2009 Junior Amateur at Emporia Municipal. But as he competed in his final summer in the KJGA ranks in 2011, his intentions had changed right along with his burgeoning talent.
“All the junior events, obviously you go to every one of them with the intent of winning,” he said. “The (2009 Junior Amateur), when I won it, that was great. That year I had no idea I’d even be in the hunt for winning. There was a ton of good players. The Junior Section Team, I had been close before and finally got it done this year and carried that momentum on to the Match Play...”
Sterling’s Michael Gellerman, now a University of Oklahoma golfer, was second for a second straight year this time tallying 572.5 points in the final Junior POY standings. Gellerman, who edged Miller in June at Salina Municipal to win his Junior Amateur title, was Junior Player of the Year in 2009.
Kansas University signee David Auer of Wichita won the Big “I” State Championship and a pair of sectional events in placing third at 497.8 points.
Junior Week dominance
Miller came into late July’s Junior Week at Dodge City’s Mariah Hills with the thought of taking command of the KJGA Junior Player of the Year standings. And the Wellington Golf Club player did just that earning medalist honors during the Junior Section Team portion early in the week and
then winning four straight matches and claiming the Junior Match Play Championship at week’s end.
Miller picked up 200 points with his Match Play victory, another 150 for the Section team win and another 25 for earning a spot on the Kansas-Nebraska Cup team. That gave him a lead of more than 120 points over Gellerman.
“I was really glad to win (the Junior Section Team); I was really trying to get Junior Player of the Year points,” said Miller. “That was my goal going in, to win that because I knew there was a bunch of points to be had. My goal was to win both of them.”
Miller opened the Section Team with a 65 at Mariah Hills to take a three-shot lead. The six-under round came despite not driving the ball very well, Miller said.
“I don’t think I hit two fairways,” he said. “My wedge game was pretty good. I was hitting them in there pretty close and making some putts. I didn’t drive it well but I scored well.”
Miller came back with a two-under 69 the second day and his 134 total cleared the field by four shots.
“I drove it well (the second) day and hit most of the greens; I just wasn’t making any putts,” Miller admitted. “I was just two-putting every green… I feel like I lost five or six shots putting. It could have been another 65 easily, but the putts just weren’t going in.”
Miller, who had not seen the Mariah Hills course since he was about 7 or 8 years old playing in the Junior Section Team’s 11 and under division, continued his fine play during Junior Week as the top seed for the Junior Match Play Championship. He downed Lenexa’s Cameron Wiltse 5 and 4 in the first round before subduing Hays’ Trey Herman 2 up in the second.
“My first match the first day I got off to a really good start. I was three or four up through six holes,” said Miller, who went 3-1 in last year event at Lawrence’s Eagle Bend in his only other Match Play appearance. “I started out real well then started making a lot of pars on Nos. 7-12. I had a big enough lead he just didn’t come back from that.”
Miller admitted not playing his best in his second-round encounter with Herman. But he made long putts on Nos. 15 and 18 to win 2 up.
“I think everybody was tired,” Miller said. “I didn’t play too terribly good. I was probably two or three under par. I just kind of hung in there and didn’t make any bogeys.”
That win moved Miller into the semifinal round where he faced No. 12 seed Zach Kirby of Dodge City. The top seed said that match was probably the worst he played all week.
“I just couldn’t get anything going at all, just making quite a few pars, a coupe bogeys, a birdie here and there,” Miller said. “I was 2 up through 16 and lost the last two holes and then I won the 19th hole. I drove it over the green. I was in the tall grass and didn’t have a very good lie. I chipped it out to the middle of the green. I had about 30 feet for birdie and lipped that out.”
Miller’s conceded par moved him into the afternoon finals with Russell lefty Jordan Hecker. But both players played pretty well in the match, according to Miller. The top seed said he was four or five under par for the round that eventually ended in a 4 and 3 victory over Hecker.
“I played pretty good for as tired as I was,” he said. “I birdied all the par 5s, which was a good deal. And he made a couple bogeys that he shouldn’t have that allowed me to get a bigger lead.”
Miller’s eagle on 18 leaves him one short at Junior Am
Miller, the 2009 Kansas Junior Amateur champion at Emporia Municipal, battled Gellerman down to the final hole at this summer’s Championship at Salina Municipal. Gellerman, after shooting a 63 earlier in the event, led for most of the final day. But the future Sooner bogeyed the par-5 seventh hole and three-putted No. 9 from about 10 feet and saw his lead slip to three at the turn.
Gellerman and Miller seemed to find their stride as the back nine opened. Both players birdied the 
par-5, 10th hole and drained birdie putts at the par-3 11th -- Gellerman’s from about 25 feet and Miller’s from 8 feet.
Gellerman once again saw his margin slip to two shots with a three-putt bogey from more than 60 feet at the par-3 17th. That left Miller with shot at a tie on the reachable par-5 finishing hole.
“I knew I needed a birdie to win; I knew low (in the clubhouse) was 205 and I knew birdie would win unless Myles made a two,” Gellerman said of his thoughts on the tee at 18 where he would make eventually make birdie to secure the title by one stroke. “I was actually thinking Myles would make a three. I knew he would go after it with his drive and if he was in good shape he’d hit a wedge. And he did just that.”
Miller’s 12-foot eagle putt at No. 18 left him with a three-under 32 on the back nine and a one-under 69 for the third round. His 204 total was a shot better than Leawood’s Ross Thornton who moved up to third with a final-round 66 in the gusty conditions of day three.
“I wanted to get out to a quick start…and I ended up giving back a couple shots,” said Miller, who had an opening-round 68 and added 67 in the second round in topping the 17 division at 204. “I just struggled the whole front nine. I made a birdie at No. 7; then missed a short one at nine that kind of shot me down. Then I birdied No. 10 and 11 and was right back in it. Then I made some pars coming through 13, 14, 15 and made a great up and down from behind No. 16 to stay in it. Then on 17, Michael three-putted and I knew I was close... I had to make three at 18, but I still pretty well figured that three wouldn’t do it.”
Miller, Gellerman and Leawood’s Joseph Lambert were grouped for the final round, delayed three hours due to stormy weather in Salina. Gellerman quickly took charge in the grouping by birdying the par-5 third hole to go to eight-under for the championship. He’d widened his lead to five in the final trio as Miller suffered a pair of early bogeys in the windy conditions
Two sectional wins and a team triumph in Nebraska
Miller’s big summer of 2011 included a pair of victories, a third and a fourth in his four KJGA sectional events.
“The sectional events were at courses that I’ve played a lot,” he admitted. “They were close to home and I was playing good at that point. The fourth-place finish I shot 67, which was five under. I played really well. There were just a few others that played better.”
Miller added a top-5 placing at the inaugural Railer, Kansas Stroke Play Championship at Newton’s Sand Creek Station in late June. Miller had rounds of 73-75-75 and tied Jack Courington of Wichita
for fifth at 223.
Miller earned 10 POY points as an exempt player for the Kansas Amateur Championship at Hallbrook in late July. There he tied for 41st in stroke-play qualifying earning another 20 points. Overland Park’s Harry Higgs, a Southern Methodist University golfer seeded 21st for match play, edged No. 44 Miller 1 up in their opening-round encounter.
Miller earned 25 points in qualifying for the Kansas team for the Kansas-Nebraska Junior Cup matches held in early August at Happy Hollow Club in Omaha. Miller won one of his first-day team matches and cruised to victory in his singles tilt on the second day as the Kansas squad defeated its Nebraska counterpart 10-6 in the Ryder Cup-Style competition.
Miller and Winfield’s Seth Bryan downed Nebraska’s Karl Krieser and Erik Krzyzanowski 3 and 2 completing a sweep of the first day’s afternoon four-ball matches. That turned the event around and gave Kansas a 5-3 lead at the end of the first day.
Miller then thumped Nebraska’s Tommy Hamilton 7 and 5 in their second-day singles tussle as the Kansas squad needed just 2.5 points during those matches to regain the Cup. The team surpassed that tally easily winning five of the eight matches and walked away with a 10-6 triumph.
“Everybody played really well, going in there, never having been there before,” Miller recalled. “We had a great time. Staying with the host families was really fun. That was a good experience. I’d never done that before. Overall it was just a great time and we played well.”
