The story of Joseph McDavid Miller is told in trophies, records and the people who still gather every February in his memory. Known to everyone as David, the Daphne-raised golfer won four consecutive high school state championships, earned All-SEC honors three times and All-American recognition twice at the University of Georgia, and played professionally before an inherited disease ended his career — and, at age 36 in 2015, his life.
Myotonic Dystrophy, the genetic disorder that took him, is the most common adult-onset muscular dystrophy: a progressive muscle-wasting condition with no cure, inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern that gives each child of an affected parent a 50 percent chance of developing it. It runs on the Miller side of the family and was first diagnosed in David’s aunt and two cousins in 2013. David passed away in his sleep on March 18, 2015.
The youngest Bulldog
David was the youngest of four children of Peggy and Pokey Miller of Daphne. Pokey — so named for arriving late at his own birth — was an avid golfer who played a year at Georgia Tech and tried to pass the game to all four of his children. He finally struck gold with the youngest.
The family stories about David’s talent start impossibly early. At a Bayside Academy end-of-year party, when his sister Marian was 13 and David was 3, the chaperoned group took a trip to a Gulf Shores amusement park and played putt-putt. David joined in, putter taller than he was, wearing a little boy’s suit — and beat them all. “We all told Mom, ‘David is really good!'”
He played junior varsity at Bayside Academy before transferring to UMS in Mobile for varsity golf, where coach Eddie Holmes helped him become a competitive golfer. His sister Jeanie transferred too — “I was his ride to school,” she says. The results at UMS became legendary: four straight state championships, a tied course record at Lakewood Golf Club — set, as a family friend delighted in telling the previous record holder, “from the tips” — and a reputation as a local hero that drew recruiters from across the country, including UNLV. David chose Georgia.
Teammate first
At Georgia under coach Chris Haack, David became the program’s first recruit of the modern era and one of five All-Americans on the 2001 team — a roster so deep that its sixth man didn’t even factor into the count: two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson, the Pensacola-area product who had started at Faulkner State Community College before transferring to Athens.
“David was the consummate teammate and friend,” Haack said. “Our program is where it is today because guys like David bought into what we wanted to do and helped lay a strong foundation.” Watson would later donate the funds to name Georgia’s golf equipment room in David’s memory — the “Fix-It” room, because David was famously obsessed with his equipment.
That obsession ran deep. Jeanie recalls how David took his clubs into the bathroom after playing and cleaned them with a toothbrush. When she once borrowed them, he grudgingly cleaned them first, then asked when she got home: “How were my clubs?” Her answer — “They really dig up the dirt!” — ended club borrowing forever. His fastidiousness extended to everything: when Marian came home from college, David spent hours detailing her car until it sparkled.
Teammates saw the same perfectionism turned outward. “He always wanted to be the best and be the man, but he always wanted to be the best for his teammates,” said Austin Hynson, his UMS teammate and close friend. “The thing that really separated David from everyone else was his passion and work ethic for the game of golf. That’s what made him so good.”
Authentic, in few words
Those who knew David best describe a man of few words who never spoke badly of anyone. “He was authentic. I don’t know anyone like him,” Jeanie says. “He was a natural. I feel like golf is a meticulous game, and his approach to golf was meticulous.” When recruiters came — UNLV among them — David picked Georgia, and Pokey made whatever David needed happen.
The measure of the man showed in March 2015, when Bubba Watson withdrew from the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill to attend David’s funeral in Fairhope. “I am sad to withdraw from the Arnold Palmer Invitational,” Watson said in a statement. “A close childhood friend of mine passed away unexpectedly last night. My thoughts and prayers are with his young family at this sad time. I have chosen to withdraw so I can attend the funeral and pay respects to my friend and his family.”
Leaving the tour, leaving a legacy
David played professionally on the Hooters Tour, but as Myotonic Dystrophy began to affect his ability to compete at the highest level, he chose to leave professional golf to dedicate himself to being a husband and father. At 36, he passed away in his sleep.
His legacy has only grown since. At UMS, the David Miller Award honors a member of the boys varsity golf team who displays the same competitive nature and unwavering team spirit that made David a champion and a teammate. At Georgia, the “Fix-It” room carries his name. And since 2017, the David Miller Memorial Scholarship — established with Pokey’s help and launched when Watson asked coach Haack, “Heck yeah, I’ll play,” to the inaugural event — has been funded by an annual February tournament, played at Lakewood Golf Club in Point Clear and Magnolia Grove in Mobile, drawing David’s former teammates and family friends each year. David, notably, was the only player coach Haack ever allowed to use the torch in the equipment room.
Remembering a local legend
David’s family — parents Peggy and Pokey, siblings Jeanie, Marian and Shaw — keep the scholarship going as both a memorial and a practical investment in young golfers. For everyone who knew him, from the UMS practice range to the Georgia locker room, the through-line is the same: a competitor who cleaned his clubs with a toothbrush, a friend who never said a cross word, and a golfer good enough that two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson called him a close childhood friend and gave up a tour event to say goodbye.
Contributions to the David Miller Memorial Scholarship Fund keep that memory working — one scholarship, one February tournament at a time.