PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- Jack Nicklaus won the PGA Seniors Championship by six strokes.

It wasn't that close.

It wasn't a surprise.

"Just what I expected," Lee Trevino said.

"That's what happens when the best player in the world is playing good," Chi Chi Rodriguez said yesterday.

Nicklaus was in command after building an eight-shot lead in the third round Saturday and finished with a 271 total.

In the final 18 holes, Nicklaus coasted. He led by nine shots with nine holes to go and was 10 in front with seven to go. A closing 70 gave him his fourth victory in six career starts on the PGA Senior Tour, which matches golf's over-50 set.

In those six starts, including four in his rookie season among the seniors last year, he is 71-under par for 23 rounds.

In those tournaments, only three players have finished ahead of him: Trevino in the 1990 Senior U.S. Open, and Gary Player and Rodriguez in this event a year ago.

"I played a controlled, conservative round," Nicklaus said. "I did what I wanted to do, what I thought I had to do. It wasn't a round to shoot a low score, but I didn't need a low score."

Bruce Crampton made up four shots over the last seven holes and finished second at 277, after a 68.