Johnny takes aim at UGA

In the wake of criticism of his son's religiously motivated forfeiture of the final match at the Utah State Amateur last weekend, prominent professional golfer and TV analyst Johnny Miller is taking on the Utah Golf Association.

Simply put, Miller said no major amateur tournament in Utah should be held on a Sunday. He said all golfers should be ashamed that they've allowed the Utah State Amateur and similar events to be held on the Sabbath for so long. The State Am is the longest running tournament in the country and has finished on Sunday for 106 years.

"We've been making a quadruple bogey on this Utah State Amateur for many years. And it's just not fair, and it's discriminatory," the emotional and fired-up Hall of Famer said on Monday.

Miller says it's a battle that all Utah golfers should join and fight with their golfing caretaker: the UGA. If public pressure doesn't initiate changing the State Am's dates so the event ends on Saturday, so no golfer in the future faces the same dilemma that Todd Miller faced last weekend at Jeremy Ranch, the elder Miller said he'll take other measures.

"On this particular issue, I'm going to do whatever it takes," Miller said.

He wouldn't reveal what his other plans are and said he's confident he'll never have to resort to using them.

"I hope you'll never know about (plans) B and C," Miller told reporters. "I think the UGA will make a good decision on this."

After defeating Clay Bingham, his BYU teammate, in a semifinals match Saturday afternoon, Todd Miller informed the other semifinals winner, Clark Rustand and the UGA that he wouldn't play the 36-hole final match on Sunday because of his religious conviction to keep the Sabbath day holy. He vowed upon returning from an LDS mission that he wouldn't play golf on Sunday.

He originally planned to forfeit his semifinals match so there would still be a finals match, but realized Bingham wouldn't accept the victory. UGA officials then awarded Rustand the championship trophy. They haven't criticized Todd Miller's religious convictions, just the timing in which he decided to make them known. The UGA believes Todd Miller, and golfer Clay Ogden who also planned to withdraw because of a conflicting commitment, should have withdrawn from the tournament before match play began.

"In my mind those religious convictions should have been expressed earlier in the process," said UGA executive director Joe Watts.