Miller to enter LPGA Professionals Hall of Fame

There are more than 1.800 LPGA professionals currently teaching and promoting the game of golf across the country. Many thousands more have served the LPGA since women golf professionals organized under the LPGA’s direction in 1959.Only 38 are in the LPGA Professionals Hall of Fame.

Cindy Miller is now one of the 38. The Greater Buffalo Sports hall of Famer will be inducted into the LPGA shrine in a ceremony on May 18 in Daytona, Fla. The LPGA hall honors golf professionals for their dedication, achievement and commitment to encouraging golf enthusiasts worldwide.

“When they called to tell me, I was giving a lesson to a junior student, a little girl, and I started to cry,” Miller said. “This poor little girl was looking at me like, ‘Oh my God, did somebody die?’ When I hung up the phone, I told her this is a big deal.

“It’s a big deal because you work your butt off, and you teach forever and ever and ever. It’s just awesome,” Miller said. “I’m humbled and thrilled.”

It is fitting – and utterly unsurprising – that Miller was giving a lesson when she got the news.

She has given tens of thousands of lessons over the past 40 years to thousands of Western New Yorkers, as well as players across the country, from beginners to tour pros. At age 69, she still is one of the hardest working golf professionals in America and can be found most of the year teaching at the Paddock Golf Dome in the Town of Tonawanda. This is just the latest and greatest recognition she has received.

In 2010, Miller was named National LPGA Teacher of the Year, and she has been named a top 50 teacher in the nation by Golf Digest. In 2024 Miller was named by the LPGA as an “Elite LPGA Teacher,” an honor given to only 11 pros worldwide,

She’s also going into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame in a ceremony April 17 in Coral Gables, Fla.

Miller’s life story is one of resilience and perseverance. A Dunkirk native, Miller graduated from Frontier High School but didn’t pick up the game until she was 15. She had no easy entrée or influential connections into the world of competitive golf.

She attended Fredonia State for a semester and played on the men’s team. Then she wrote to the University of Miami, one of the few schools with a women’s golf team at the time, to see if she could play for the Hurricanes. The athletics director told her she was not good enough. Undeterred, she mailed the women’s golf coach to see if she could try out.

“Yes, you can try, but you will probably never play,” he told her.

She went anyway. She walked on in 1975. She made the team. She became a two-time All-America and she helped Miami to national championships in 1977 and 1978.

Miller won the 1978 New York State Women’s Amateur. She played on the LPGA Legends Tour and in 2005 finished second on its money list.

Discouragement comes easily for golfers trying to learn the game. Miller’s hard road to success fueled a fire in her she has used to encourage students her entire teaching career.

“Being a competitive control freak that I am, when someone walks into my office, which is the 4 by 4 foot mat, I look them in the eyes,” Miller said. “They have no idea that I’m looking at them thinking, ‘I’m going to make you better than you ever thought you could be. And when I do that, we’re both going to win.’

That’s my competitive self. That’s how we both win. So I love doing that. And people get better, and they tell their friends, and they all come back.”

Miller wasn’t planning to be an instructor when she was on the LPGA Tour. She was introduced to her future husband, Allen Miller, by a mutual friend when he was in Miami playing in the PGA Tour Doral Open.

“After I watched him play, he said, ‘Do you want me to help you with your swing?’” Cindy Miller said. “He gave me a couple drills to practice. I thought, “Why do you want me to do that? That’s contrary to anything anyone’s ever told me. But a little voice in my head said why don’t you listen to him? He’s playing on the tour and no one else who has ever taught you has played on a tour. I did it, and I hit it better. Allen is a student of the game, and when he helped me understand the swing, it was like a light bulb went off.”

Allen Miller, a PGA Tour past champion, also has taught many thousands of golfers in Western New York over the past 40 years since retiring from the tour.

The Milers have been contributors to instructional programs on the Golf Channel. Cindy Miller also appeared on Golf Channel’s hit series, “Big Break III Ladies Only” for several seasons and returned for the “Big Break 7 Reunion,” reaching a new generation of golfers.

Miller is one of two being inducted into the LPGA Professional Hall of Fame, along with former LPGA Professional national president Marvol Barnard of Arizona.

Miller’s latest endeavor is a book she has written that is scheduled to be published this month. It’s titled “Take Another Shot: At Business, Life or Golf.”

“Most people don’t know my story, which is why I’ve written a book,” she said. “The whole thing starts with the message, “Cindy, you’re not good enough.” It’s all about Buffalo. You’re just not good enough? Well, watch me. I’m going to prove that I am”

The book has 18 chapters, each of which outlines life lessons as told though Miller’s story. She got prominent Western New Yorkers to contribute their perspectives, including Delaware North Chairman Jeremy Jacobs, New Era CEO Christopher Koch, Bills Hall of Famer Jim Kelly and Donald Ross Sportswear founder Rob Stein. The book is available for presale at cindymillertraining.com.