It’s much easier these days to not like a TV announcer than it is to like one. They just get so aggravating (especially when the team you are pulling for is losing) that it makes you appreciate the invention of the mute button.

I have never watched a sporting event strictly because of an announcer, but there are a select few that do make it more enjoyable. Actually, there’s one less now than there used to be.

Johnny Miller retired from NBC’s golf coverage after 29 years last week. It seemed strange that he did it at the Phoenix Open and seemed even odder that he did it after Saturday’s third round instead of the final round. (He came back to call the Phoenix Open because he had great memories of the tournament. He said he did it on Saturday because “it made the most sense” but he probably wanted to avoid the distraction of a final round as well.)

Miller was never afraid to call it like he saw it, which is precisely the reason why he was the best. Oh sure, it hacked off the players he was covering because golf was so used to nothing but glowing comments from the announcers (which, for the most part, is still the case).

There were lots of terms Miller used that we had never heard before — “chunk-and-run” “green light special” for example — but it was one word that Miller wasn’t afraid to use that separated him from everyone else — “choke.”

Nobody, especially in golf, had ever used that term before. But Miller wasn’t afraid to say it if he thought it applied. He always thought it’s what separated the truly great players in the game.

Miller, 71, only got the job with NBC in 1990 because Lee Trevino left to go to the Senior Tour. He will be replaced (by Paul Azinger) but it won’t be the same.