1971 PGA Championship 1971" "Saturday, February 27, 1971" "Sunday, February 28, 1971" 1971 PGA Championship The 1971 PGA Championship was the 53rd PGA Championship, played February 25–28 at the original PGA National Golf Club, presently known as BallenIsles Country Club (East Course) in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Jack Nicklaus won the second of his five PGA Championships, two strokes ahead of Billy Casper, the reigning Masters champion. Nicklaus led wire-to-wire, and held a four-stroke lead over Gary Player after 54 holes, with Casper seven shots back. The two were pre-tournament favorites, along with Arnold Palmer, who shot an opening round 75 and finished
1960 PGA Championship (Masters, U.S. Open, PGA) in the same calendar year. Two-time champion Ben Hogan played in the PGA Championship for the first time since his match play victory in 1948. A third round left him at and he missed the 54-hole cut by one stroke. Attendance figures were 14,141 for Sunday's final round, with a four-day total of 53,509. This was the first of three PGA Championships at the South Course, which later hosted in 1966 and 1975. It is the current venue for the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, which began in 1976 as the World Series of Golf on the PGA Tour.