Ohio's major moment

By George Sweda
Courtesy of the Plain Dealer Reporter

It was supposed to be Tom Weiskopf's tournament to win. But history - and Jack Nicklaus - intervened.

Thirty years ago tomorrow, the 1973 PGA Championship wrapped at Canterbury Golf Club in Beachwood, the last true major championship played in Greater Cleveland. This year's PGA is this week at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y.

Despite tickets that cost just $7 for practice rounds and $10 for the tournament, there were not big crowds at Canterbury. Named for the hometown of Cleveland's founder, Moses Cleaveland, the course had hosted two Western Opens, two U.S. Opens and a U.S. Amateur before taking on the '73 PGA.

Weiskopf, then 29, was enjoying the best season of his eight years on the PGA Tour. He would win five times that season, and arrived in Cleveland as the new British Open champion.

At Royal Troon in Scotland that July, Weiskopf shot a 276 to beat Johnny Miller and Neil Coles by three shots. The win was easily the biggest of his career, surpassing victories at the Kemper Open and the old Philadelphia Classic.

It offered hope for a man who too often came up second best. Weiskopf had already been runner-up twice at The Masters in 1969 and 1972. But now, the Massillon-born graduate of Benedictine High School and Ohio State appeared set to win a series of major titles.

A month after his British title, Weiskopf was at Canterbury, a course that he knew well. Later, he would make sure his mother Eva and younger brother Dan were members.

"It's a classic course, a fair course, not boring like Firestone can be, where you just have to hit the ball far all the time," he said.

By any standards, Canterbury is not a long golf course. It was 6,852 yards with par 71 for the '73 PGA.

Nicklaus, playing the course for the first time professionally, started play that week with a 72. He trailed Al Geiberger, who won the PGA at Firestone in 1966, and club pro Don Iverson by five shots.

With 13 major titles (including his two U.S. Amateur titles), Nicklaus was just one major from passing his idol Bobby Jones.

"I'd like to win one more major championship very much but I haven't prepared myself on this golf course as much as I would have liked," said Nicklaus, then 33.

Nicklaus' 1973 season had been one of near-misses at the majors. Winner of both the Masters and U.S. Open in 1972 and second in the British to Lee Trevino, Nicklaus couldn't match that success the following year. He came to Beachwood with a tie for third at the Masters, a tie for fourth at the U.S. Open at Oakmont (to Miller's sensational final-round 63) and a fourth at Royal Troon.

Previous majors held in Ohio hadn't been kind, either. In the 1964 PGAat Columbus Country Club, Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer finished three back of Bobby Nichols. In 1969, Nicklaus, without a major title since the 1967 U.S. Open, finished tied for 11th in the PGA, seven shots behind Raymond Floyd at NCR Country Club in Dayton.

At Canterbury, a second-round 68 moved Nicklaus into third place, a shot behind Iverson and Mason Rudolph. But the day is most remembered for a photograph.

Coerced by his older brothers, 4-year-old Gary Nicklaus ran out to the 18th green. Plain Dealer photographer Ray Matjasic caught the boy in the arms of his father. The classic photo still hangs in the Nicklaus home, at his North Palm Beach, Fla., office and at his Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin.

For his efforts at slipping under the ropes and later at his father's post-round press conference, young Gary was grounded for the weekend by his mother Barbara.

He missed quite a finish by his dad.

Nicklaus dominated the last two rounds, posting a 68-69 that pulled him four strokes clear of Bruce Crampton. His first major victory in his home state gave Nicklaus his 14th major title, surpassing Jones' 43-year-old standard.

"After Canterbury, I received all kinds of fanciful accolades, including a lot more of the 'greatest of all time'," Nicklaus would later write in his autobiography, "Nicklaus - My Story." "I know it was meant genuinely and complimentarily, and it was obviously flattering. But it was also a little unsettling to me at times because of the shadow that it seemed to cast on those who had gone before.

"What Bob Jones did, just as Harry Vardon before him and Ben Hogan after him, was to become the best golfer of his time. That's all any man can do, and it is what I have been trying to do all through my career. If when my playing days are finally over I am judged to have succeeded, that will do just fine as an epitaph."

A day after his Aug. 12, 1973 victory, Nicklaus was walking around ankle-deep mud outside Dublin, creating a routing for his Muirfield Village Golf Club.

Weiskopf, who opened with a 1-under 70 in the first-round only to fall from contention with three straight 71s, finished tied for sixth at 283. His British Open title would be his lone major, with two more second-place finishes awaiting at Augusta in 1974 and 1975, along with a second to Jerry Pate in the 1976 U.S. Open.

Just before hosting the 1996 U.S. Senior Open, Canterbury made Arnold Palmer, who won the 1984 and 1985 Seniors Players Championship there, an honorary member. Plans are now in the works to do the same for Nicklaus as well, during the Aug. 24 finals of the club's championship.