1973 PGA Championship

Canterbury’s caddie master, Mike Kiely, organized a blind draw for the assignments. The Club identifies this as the last PGA Championship to use local caddies throughout the field. It names member Dr. Dan Breitenbach as Tom Weiskopf’s caddie and recalls that professionals from Nicklaus to Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead relied on Canterbury’s own people that week.¹

Nicklaus opened with 72, then added two rounds of 68. Canterbury remembers two contrasting Sunday recoveries: a low, fading long iron out of the trees at thirteen to save par, and a high eight-iron from the rough at fifteen that set up a birdie. His closing 69 produced 277. Bruce Crampton was second at 281.¹⁴

The victory was celebrated as Nicklaus’s fourteenth major title, passing Bobby Jones’s record. That comparison included Nicklaus’s U.S. Amateur victories in 1959 and 1961. Canterbury was his twelfth professional major, a distinction that matters when comparing this milestone with his eventual record of eighteen.¹²³