JUST ANOTHER MOUTHFUL OF MILLER.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH Media

So what kind of brutal honesty will be coming out of Johnny Miller's pie hole this weekend that ends up irking someone on the U.S. Ryder Cup team, enough so that the NBC golf analyst gets laid with all the credit and/or blame for another gallant come-from-behind almost-victory?

Not that anyone asked, but, well, as long as you asked ...

``Tiger Woods really needs to step it up,'' Miller was saying the other day. ``He has to realize that the European players, when they have one match against him instead of four rounds, they've got nothing to lose. They think of it that way. They get a free run at history and a chance to be heroes in their hometown. ...

``Tiger is behind the 8-ball a little bit. He'd better bring his 'A' game. He hasn't brought his 'A' game too much in the Ryder Cup. If he's judged only by his Ryder Cup, he hasn't played well.''

And ...

``The U.S. team has made a career in this of getting behind and making valiant efforts to get back to square up and end up losing, and I just believe the U.S. doesn't have the urgency - or maybe the captains haven't told them to use most of their energy in the first hour.

``In match play, the secret is showing dominance early. You've got to be thinking birdies. You can never think on the pro level that a par is going to win a hole, or you're an idiot.''

So, of course, somewhere it'll get back to Woods that Miller called him an idiot. That is par for the course.

Back in 1991, Miller made a comment about a Paul Azinger shot on the 17th hole. Azinger called Miller a ``moron,'' but the U.S. secured a one-point win, he upgraded the retort, saying he actually called Miller a ``Mormon.''

Miller still calls himself the ``sacrificial lamb'' for his comments in '99 about Justin Leonard that captain Ben Crenshaw used to rally the troops. Miller said after Saturday morning's play that Leonard should have just ``stayed home and watched on TV,'' given the way he was performing. Leonard's now famous green-storming, 45-foot putt the next day that halved the match and clinched the U.S. victory redeemed himself in the eyes of Miller, who later apologized.

``The bottom line,'' Miller explained, ``is the Ryder Cup has so much interesting stuff to talk about for so many hours that it's impossible for one guy not to make a mistake. And I've made more than most, just the way I announce. I'm the one with the most hours with an open mike and in on every conversation, so sometimes I'll have a brain cramp.''

Tom Roy, NBC's golf producer, wouldn't change Miller's style no matter how the quotes are manipulated by the media or the U.S. team.

``When you're talking about a brain cramp, it's not that you've made a factual error. It's just what you're thinking and sometimes you don't have a filter between your brain and mouth, so what you're thinking comes out,'' Roy said. ``A majority of the announcers today don't say what they're thinking, so the audience is actually cheated by hearing a bunch of Pabulum.''

With 26 hours of coverage starting very early this morning on USA Network and moving to NBC for Saturday and Sunday - be careful of both the yips and the jimjams from too much early caffeine intake - Miller has got plenty of opportunities to cramp up, and plenty of support from his broadcasting mates.

``If your commentary becomes their direction for play, then they're not paying attention to what they're supposed to be paying attention to,'' NBC course reporter Roger Maltbie said.

``I'm never gonna think (what I have to say) is that big a deal,'' said Miller, at NBC the last 15 years and considered the game's best at what he does. ``I guess my style has stirred up the fire ants sometimes. I don't mean to do it, just the way I do it.

``I'm just trying to make it interesting. If you're watching the Ryder Cup for 10 hours, we don't want you to take three naps, just two.''

--Beyond the ropes: No telling how many times NBC's cameras will just happen to find Woods' fiancee, Elin Nordegren, during the weekend, but she might become as much a part of the overall story as he has leading into the Ryder Cup.

Sports Illustrated, for example, dedicated a six-page piece on her in a special Ryder Cup preview edition that went out to its Golf Plus subscription base. The story by Alan Shipnuck is headlined ``Who Is This Woman?'' but doesn't have the luxury of including quotes from her since she doesn't talk to the media. Referred to in the story as a ``shadowy figure,'' one unnamed person likens her to the Greta Garbo of golf.

Then there are those rumors about her relationship with Woods not going so well. When asked at a pre-Ryder Cup press conference this week about a Boston Herald gossip column that reported the two ``may have called it quits,'' Woods called it an unplayable lie.

``That's completely false,'' Woods said. ``It's 100 percent false, actually. It's amazing how the media can quote false things like that and not be held accountable ... which I think is just incredible.

``Nothing's happening to us. We're still very happy. It's just unbelievable how the media can do that and get away with that.''

Maybe Woods will share those sentiments when he's on Conan O'Brien's show on Tuesday after the Ryder Cup.

SOUND BYTES 

WHAT SMOKES --Although he won't be part of NBC's coverage this weekend, David Feherty's primer to the Ryder Cup is a must-read. The CBS analyst has come up with his ``Totally Subjective History of the Ryder Cup: Hardly Definitive, Completely Cockeyed, But Absolutely Loving Tribute to Golf's Most Exciting Event'' ($29.95, Rugged Land Books, 352 pages), where you'll find some behind-the-scenes accounts of his participation with the European team in the 1991 so-called ``War by the Shore'' in Kiawah Island, S.C. ``People really are sick,'' Feherty writes. ``America had won the Gulf War a few months earlier and was hungry for another victory. War made sense in Kuwait, where the U.S. was protecting oil fields and fighting for democracy, but history tells us that you'll get nothing out of fighting Europe except better chocolate, more expensive wine and, of course, ownership of France.'' In '99, Feherty won a singles match against Payne Stewart 2 & 1, halved a four-ball match with Sam Torrance and lost a foursomes match with Torrance in the Europeans' one-point loss to the Americans.

-- While Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Roy Jones Jr. take their usual perch for the HBO pay-per-view division broadcast of the Oscar de la Hoya-Bernard Hopkins bout going out to the U.S. audience (at only $54.95), KCAL-Channel 9's Alan Massengale is joined by longtime L.A. boxing broadcaster Rich Marotta for the international feed coverage. ``Too bad no one in the states will hear my call, but I'm huge in Guam,'' Massengale said.

--ABC's Keith Jackson, during the USC-Colorado State football broadcast last Saturday, said this about the size of the national championship rings given to the Trojans players: ``Well, you could always use it to crack your holiday nuts.''

--Kings radio broadcasters Nick Nickson and Daryl Evans, who, unlike team TV broadcasters Bob Miller and Jim Fox will be paid during the NHL lockout because of their many additional duties with the club, will appear at the KTIE-AM (590) radio booth during the Route 66 Rendezvous classic car show in San Bernardino on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. to talk hockey with any disgruntled fans. More information: [phone].

--Don't believe us when we tell ya that Larry Burnett has finally decided to ditch the hairpiece he's worn for years going back to his ESPN ``SportsCenter'' days. See the new, liberated Burnett for yourself doing play-by-play on the Sparks-Lynx telecast tonight on FSN West 2.

WHAT CHOKES --On one hand, unsubstantiated rumors continue to circulate that the Dodgers aren't going to renew Ross Porter's contract when it runs out after this season, and Rick Monday might be in the same predicament. That hardly seems fair to either. But, with a change in ownership, that's what happens in these situations. If it does occur, the team would likely be better off finding a play-by-play man and an analyst to work the six innings of radio between the third and ninth while Vin Scully continues to fly solo on TV. Considering the projected pay scales, who's available and who has ties to the Dodgers, one broadcasting tandem that could fit that requirement is Daron Sutton and Jose Mota. Sutton, son of the former Dodgers pitcher and Atlanta Braves broadcaster, is in his second season with the Milwaukee Brewers after working for the Angels. Mota, son of coach Manny Mota, has a contract as an Angels' Spanish language broadcaster that's supposed to be up after this season, but he's proven he can do English telecasts as he did in the final month of last season with the Angels and with Fox regional network telecasts. One broadcaster who has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Scully down the road but likely not a easy fit into this kind of primary radio/little TV situation would be Matt Vasgersian, who has two years left on his TV cable deal with the San Diego Padres. ``It's a very prestigious position, mostly because of what Vin Scully has made of it, and I don't think he should be leaving any time soon,'' said Vasgersian, a USC grad. One plus for Vasgersian is that since the Cox Cable Channel 4 telecasts of the Padres aren't available on MLB's ``Extra Innings'' pay package, his voice hasn't been nationally attached to the Padres like some other broadcasters who get more exposure.

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SOUND BYTES (see text)

By Tom Hoffarth