If there are various strands of opinion on Johnny Miller's extraordinary 63 at the US Open in 1973, some things are definitive. Miller was the first player to shoot a 63 in the US Open, and his eightunder-par assault on one of the world's most notoriously difficult courses remains the lowest final round by a winner in major championship history.

Facts aside, it might just be the greatest round of golf of all time.

Other final rounds such as Hogan's 67 in the 1951 US Open at a brutal Oakland Hills, Tom Watson's dazzling 65 at Turnberry in 1977, and Nicklaus's emotionallycharged 65 at the 1986 Masters have to be contenders, but for its almost perfect ballstriking, there has probably never been anything to rival Miller's demolition of Oakmont before or since.

Rounds of 63 are not supposed to materialise at the US Open which traditionally is in the business of breaking and not making players, and they are certainly not supposed to materialise at Oakmont which Sarazen famously described as having all the charm of a "punch to the head".

As for Miller himself, there are no doubts where his storied 63 stands. "The round is what it is. I don't have to exaggerate it, or promote it to show what it was, " he told Golf Digest magazine. "I've seen a lot of great golf as a player, and following the game from the television booth, I still know it's the best round I've seen."

Currently a perceptive, hard-hitting commentator with NBC, some of Miller's critics would have expected him to say just that. In his time with the headphones on, Curtis Strange, Paul Azinger, Tom Lehman and Justin Leonard are just a few among a number of high-profile players he has managed to cross.

A devout Mormon, he justifies his honesty by claiming that he answers to a "higher law, which is being true to yourself".

Azinger, who captains America's Ryder Cup team next year, once called him the "biggest moron".

Opinions aside, that astonishing 63 on 17 June, 1973 included three lip-outs, a birdie putt from eight feet which came up short, as well as one bogey. Rueing those missed opportunities, Miller later said if he had been able to putt as well as Watson . . .

who was then one of the world's best on the greens . . .

the round would have been even lower. "If Tom had been putting for me, it might have been a 58."

On the Sunday morning of the final round 34 years ago, Miller wasn't regarded as a threat either by the joint leaders, Arnold Palmer, Julius Boros, Jerry Heard and John Schlee, or by himself. Trailing by six strokes in a tie for 13th place, his resignation was such that when he left the hotel to prepare for his teetime, his wife Linda stayed behind to pack so they would be able to catch an earlier flight home to California.

After two solid opening rounds, his problems had started on Saturday when on the first hole he discovered he had left his yardage book in a different pair of trousers.

Having no confidence in his caddie's calculations . . . "He just carried the bag, " said Miller . . . he was at the mercy of Oakmont, and by the time Linda returned with the book, he was five over par for the round after six holes.

"I played good to shoot 76, but I felt I had no chance on Sunday, " he later explained.

The confidence that would propel Miller to a staggering eight PGA Tour victories the following season, and to a British Open title in 1976, had yet to fully blossom, but at 26 he still had a reputation for low scoring.

"I just knew that in a given week, I was going to shoot a 64 or a 65, " he stated on the 30th anniversary of the round. "I wasn't consistent, but if I could make putts, I could shoot those low scores."

On the Sunday of the 1975 Tucson Open, he attacked every pin to blitz the field with a 61 which Watson reckoned was the best round he had ever seen.

As he finished his warm-up on Oakmont's practice range, he says he heard a voice as "clear as a bell" telling him to open his stance like Lee Trevino. "There were many times when I had variations in my swing and played with them, but there was probably never anything as drastic as that, " he said. "It happened to work. If you believe in fate, well I've got to tell you, that was fate."

Starting out an hour before the leaders with his Trevinoesque set-up, he promptly birdied the first four holes, with three of the putts virtual tap-ins. At the next, he left his birdie attempt from eight feet short, and then as the putting problems which would later plague his career temporarily took hold, he took three from 30 feet at the eighth.

He birdied the ninth to be out in four-under par 32, and then with further brilliant iron play he reeled off four more birdies between the 11th and the 15th holes. The turning point of the round came at the 603-yard 12th where he missed his only fairway of the day. "That hole was so hard it was unbelievable. I was looking at bogey after missing the fairway. To make birdief I knew that if I could make a birdie or two coming in, I was going to win the Open."

With Miller close to completing his epic, Palmer had reached the 12th at threeunder par believing he had at least a one-shot lead. Glancing at the scoreboard, Palmer thought there might have been a mistake. "Who the hell is five under?" he reputedly asked his playing partner Schlee. "Miller. Didn't you know?" was Schlee's reply.

Palmer bogeyed the next three holes to plummet out of contention, and later told Schlee: "After all the golf I've played, I shouldn't have been shocked when I saw that scoreboard." But that was still the effect Miller was having on the leaders, and if birdie putts at the last two holes had gone in, whatever doubt that remained over who was going to be champion would have been removed.

"On 18, my birdie putt literally went inside the hole and came back out, " he said.

"I mean that round could have been really, really good."

As he waited for Tom Weiskopf, who led after 10 holes before falling away like Palmer, and for Schlee who couldn't birdie the last to tie, Miller sensed he was going to win. "I really believed that the worst I was going to do was get into a play-off, and the way I was hitting it, I was going to win that. It was the greatest round of my life by a mile. Every shot I hit wasn't more than two feet off line. It was a phenomenal feeling."

No one doubted it was a great round on the feared Oakmont which has since been reduced from a par 71 to a 70, but there was a caveat.

According to John Strege in his book Tiptoeing Through Hell, the greens had been watered after the first round as a precaution against rising temperatures, but due to a mistake, the sprinkler system was allowed to run all through the night.

Strege quotes a USGA official as saying: "When I went out early in the morning the golf course was virtually under water. There is an element there, and I don't want to detract from what I consider one of the greatest performances in the history of the game, but the golf course never recovered."

The opinion was echoed by Weiskopf, who along with Nicklaus and Vijay Singh, would later emulate Miller's US Open 63, but never in the final round. "Not to take anything away from his great round, but the greens were incredibly slow."

Nicklaus, while admitting that the course wasn't playing anything like a US Open layout, felt the round spoke for itself. "A 63 is a 63. As far as I can recall, there weren't a whole lot of other low numbers that day. So what does that tell you?"

As for the 60-year-old commentator, as well as the US Open return to Oakmont in 10 days' time, one thing is certain. "Shooting 63 this time, " says Miller, "will be out of the question."

Not even Tiger Woods would argue with that.