Completed Edition
1971 PGA Championship
The 1971 PGA Championship came first in the year’s major calendar. Played February 25-28 on the original PGA National’s East Course, now part of BallenIsles Country Club, it ended with Jack Nicklaus two strokes ahead of Billy Casper.123
Major Golf in February
The timing reflected the place. In his 2011 retrospective for Golf Digest, Bill Fields traced the February dates to the course agreement and the PGA’s wish for a more visible event. The PGA’s executive director, Robert Creasey, had pointed to Florida’s winter visitors as the expected gallery. In summer, that audience would be elsewhere.2
Nicklaus later credited Deane Beman with a useful putting reminder: finish the backswing before starting forward. He recorded twenty-nine one-putt greens that week. His partner for the first two rounds was sixty-eight-year-old Gene Sarazen, playing his fiftieth PGA Championship.2
Rounds of 69, 69 and 70 put Nicklaus at 208, four strokes ahead of Gary Player. His final 73 left a total of 281. Casper closed with 68 for 283; Tommy Bolt finished another stroke back. Nicklaus had now won each of the four professional majors at least twice. That was a second career Grand Slam, accumulated across several seasons.32
Sources for this story 3 references
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Recorded outcomes