PROVO -- With a five-shot lead going into Saturday's final round, all BYU's Manuel Merizalde had to do was shoot a couple of under par and he'd likely win the Cougar Classic individual title. That is, unless someone like teammate Andy Miller got hot and fired a 63 or something.
That's exactly what happened as Miller shot his career-best round and came within one of the Riverside Country Club course record set by Jay Don Blake 20 years ago.Miller's 63 gave him a three-round total of 201 and a one-shot victory over Merizalde, whose final-round 70 came up just short of Miller. Merizalde had a chance to force a playoff but his tricky, 8-foot downhill birdie try at No. 18 just slid past the hole.
Miller's magnificent round and close win over Merizalde was the main excitement on a day when the team race was a non-issue.
Host BYU began the day with an almost insurmountable 22-stroke lead and, after shooting another exceptional score Saturday (13-under-par 275), the Cougs cruised to a 24-stroke win over New Mexico. Fresno State was another 14 strokes back to finish third in the 15-team tournament.
"That was just an absolutely phenomenal performance," said BYU coach Bruce Brockbank. "My expectation was that if we shot 25-under that would be great, but what the kids did (43-under) was sensational."
The Cougars took the top three individual spots as Scott Miller, Andy's older brother, finished third with a 207 total after a final-round 70. New Mexico's Scott Hailes, a native of West Bountiful, finished fourth at 208, while the Lobos' Michael Letzig rounded out the top five at 210.
While Andy has been a second- or third-team All-American in each of his first three seasons at BYU, he hasn't had many individual victories, despite being close several times. In fact, his last victory came two seasons ago at the Nike Northwest Classic. However, Andy said this weekend's victory won't give him any extra confidence.
"Every tournament I play, I'm trying to win," he said. "I have a lot of confidence because I've finished up near the lead all year. Whether it's college or pro, the wins will come if you keep knocking."
If Andy wouldn't say it, at least his dad knew about the importance of the victory. Johnny Miller, who won 24 tournaments on the PGA Tour, followed Andy most of the day along with his wife Linda.
"This will be good for him because he's finished in the top six about 20 times since his last win," said Johnny.
Andy started off with a bang, knocking in birdie putts from 10 and 30 feet on the first two holes. He cooled down with just one more birdie, at No. 5, on the front nine. However on the back nine, Andy caught fire and ran off six straight birdies with putts from 15, 3, 10, 20 and 3 feet, before tapping in from an inch after nearly making a 35-foot eagle putt at 15.
As Andy teed off on No. 15, Johnny suddenly sounded like he was announcing for NBC. "You're seeing a historic round today. He should birdie here and then he has three birdie holes after that to break the course record."
Unfortunately, young Miller couldn't make any more birdies after his near-eagle at 15, as he couldn't get closer than 20 feet on any of the last three holes.
"I wasn't thinking about (the record), but I was trying to birdie all three of those last holes," said Andy. "When I birdied the first six, I said I'm going to try and birdie every hole on this side."
Merizalde got it to three-under through 14 holes, which put him 15-under for the tournament and in a tie with Miller. However, at the par-5 15th, his second shot got stuck in a pine tree and he made a bogey, which he couldn't make up.
Next up for the Cougars is the Mountain West tournament in California, May 1-3, followed by the NCAA Regionals, May 18-20, in Fresno. Then it's off to the NCAA tournament in Alabama, where the Cougars will try to win their first NCAA title since 1981.
The other local schools didn't move up in the team standings in the final round as Utah finished 10th, Weber State 12th, Southern Utah 13th and Utah State 15th.
You can reach Mike Sorensen by e-mail at sor@desnews.com