Ian Baker-Finch
1567192
225489585
2008-07-13T23:34:48Z
Chickenmonkey
1006216
rv vandalism that isn't even all that clever
{| border=1 align=right cellpadding=1 cellspacing=1 width=290 style="margin: 0.5em 0 1em 1em; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 87%; clear:right"
|+<big> '''Ian Baker-Finch'''</big>
|-
! colspan="2" bgcolor="#4682B4" | '''Personal Information'''
|-
| '''Birth''' || {{birth date and age|1960|10|24}} <br>[[Nambour]], [[Australia]]
|-
| '''Height''' || 6 [[Foot (unit of length)|ft]] 4 [[Inch|in]] (1.93 [[Metre|m]])
|-
| '''Weight''' || 200 [[Pound (mass)|lb]] (91 [[Kilogram|kg]])
|-
| '''Nationality''' || {{AUS}}
|-
| '''College''' || None
|-
! colspan="2" bgcolor="E2725B" | Career
|-
| '''Turned Pro''' || 1979
|-
| '''Professional wins''' || 16 (PGA Tour: 2, PGA Tour of Australasia: 10, other: 4)
|-
! colspan="2" bgcolor="#ACE1AF" | Best Results in Major Championships<br>Wins: 1
|-
| [[The Masters|Masters]]
| T6: 1992
|-
| [[U.S. Open (golf)|U.S. Open]]
| T13: 1992
|-
| [[The Open Championship|British Open]]
| '''Won''' 1991
|-
| [[PGA Championship]]
| T34: 1989
|}
'''Ian Michael Baker-Finch''' (born [[24 October]] [[1960]]) is an [[Australian]] professional [[golf]]er who is best known for winning [[The Open Championship]] in 1991.
Born in [[Nambour, Queensland|Nambour]], [[Australia]]. Baker-Finch turned professional in 1979. Baker-Finch credits [[Jack Nicklaus]] as his greatest influence, saying that he based his game on NIcklaus's book, ''Golf My Way''. He began his professional career on the [[PGA Tour of Australasia]], winning his first professional tournament, the [[New Zealand Open]], in 1983. That victory earned him an entry to the [[The Open Championship|British Open]] in 1984, where Baker-Finch would make headlines by taking the 36-hole lead, holding onto the lead after three rounds, but then shooting a disastrous last round 79 to finish ninth, much in the manner of [[Bobby Clampett]] who had endured a similar collapse two years previously.
Baker-Finch joined the [[European Tour]], winning the 1985 Scandinavian Enterprise Open and finishing in the top twenty on the order of merit in both 1985 and 1986. At the same time he continued to play in Australasia in the [[Northern Hemisphere]] winter, picking up several further tournament titles there, and occasionally played on the [[Japan Golf Tour]].
Baker-Finch first played on the [[PGA Tour]] as an invitee in 1985, and began to do so regularly in 1989, having qualified for tour membership by finishing third in the 1988 [[World Series of Golf]]. He won his first PGA Tour title at the 1989 [[Bank of America Colonial|Southwestern Bell Colonial]], giving him a two-year exemption on Tour. In 1990, he finished 16th on the PGA Tour money list, on the strength of 3 runner-up finishes and 2 third-places.
Despite his steady career, with wins on four continents, including Asia, Baker-Finch was not generally counted as a member of the elite group of international golfers, and when he won his [[major championship]] at the 1991 [[The Open Championship|British Open]], closing with a 64-66 to beat Mike Harwood by two strokes, he was considered a surprise champion. He had three other runner-up finishes that year as well, and again qualified for the [[Tour Championship]] with a 13th place finish on the money list. He ranked briefly in the top-10 of the [[Official World Golf Rankings]] that year.<ref>[http://dps.twiihosting.net/wgr/doc/content/2007%20Stats/86TO0810.pdf 69 Players Who Have Reached The Top-10 In World Ranking]</ref>
Baker-Finch's British Open victory might have proved the catalyst for him to move to a higher level and start to regularly challenge for prestigious titles, but this was not to be the case. He had a 10-year exemption from the PGA Tour from the British Open win, leaving him exempt until 2001. He did achieve a runner-up finish in the Players Championship in 1992, but never came close to contending on the PGA Tour again. He picked up one relatively minor win outside the U.S in each of 1992 and 1993, but his form then went into a steep and accelerating decline. He started to lose confidence in his game, and tinkered with his swing often. His last top-10 finish on the PGA Tour was a tie for 10th in the 1994 [[Masters Tournament]].
Baker-Finch then famously suffered a complete collapse of his game. The problems were often psychological: He would hit shots flawlessly on the practice range, and then go to the first tee and hit a weak drive into the wrong fairway. In the 1995 Open Championship at [[St Andrews]], he notoriously [[hook]]ed his first round tee-shot at the first out-of-bounds on the left side of the fairway shared with the 18th, attention was focused on him as his playing partner was [[Arnold Palmer]], competing in his final Open. [http://www.golfdigest.com/features/index.ssf?/features/gd200501bakerfinch2.html] In 1995 and 1996 he missed the cut, withdrew after one round, or was disqualified in all twenty nine PGA Tour events that he entered. After shooting a 92 in the first round of the 1997 British Open, an extraordinarily bad score by tournament professional standards, he withdrew from the championship and retired from tournament golf.
Baker-Finch was hired by [[ABC Sports]] to commentate on golf tournaments in 1998, and did so until 2006, when he was hired by [[CBS Sports]]. On broadcasts he is often known by the nickname "Finchy". The only PGA Tour event he has played since the 1997 Open Championship was the 2001 MasterCard Colonial, where he missed the cut with rounds of 74 and 77.
In 2003, 2005 and 2007 Baker-Finch served as [[Gary Player|Gary Player's]] captain's assistant for the International team in the [[Presidents Cup]]. In January 2008 he joined the Gary Player Group as an international brand ambassador and golf course designer. He plans to compete on the [[Champions Tour]] after he turns 50 in 2010.
==Professional wins (16)==
===PGA Tour wins (2)===
*[[1989 PGA Tour|1989]] [[Southwestern Bell Colonial]]
*[[1991 PGA Tour|1991]] '''[[The Open Championship]]'''
[[Men's major golf championships|Major championship]] is shown in '''bold'''.
===PGA Tour of Australasia wins (10)===
*1983 [[New Zealand Open]]
*1984 Western Australia Open
*1985 Queensland PGA, Victorian Open
*1987 Australian Match Play Championship
*1988 [[Australian Masters]]
*1990 Coolum Classic, Queensland Open
*1992 Vines Classic
*1993 [[Australian PGA Championship]]
===Japan Golf Tour wins (3)===
*1987 [[Golf Digest Tournament]]
*1988 [[Pocari Sweat Open]], [[Bridgestone ASO Open]]
===Other wins (1)===
*1985 [[Scandinavian Enterprise Open]]
==Results in major championships==
{| cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" border="1" style="font-size: 95%; border: #aaa solid 1px; border-collapse: collapse;"
|- bgcolor="#eeeeee"
!align="left"|Tournament
!1984
!1985
!1986
!1987
!1988
!1989
|-
|[[The Masters Tournament|The Masters]]
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|-
|[[U.S. Open (golf)|U.S. Open]]
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|-
|[[The Open Championship]]
|align="center" style="background:yellow;"|T9
|align="center"|T20
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|T30
|-
|[[PGA Championship]]
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|T34
|}
{| cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" border="1" style="font-size: 95%; border: #aaa solid 1px; border-collapse: collapse;"
|- bgcolor="#eeeeee"
!align="left"|Tournament
!1990
!1991
!1992
!1993
!1994
!1995
!1996
!1997
|-
|[[The Masters Tournament|The Masters]]
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center" style="background:yellow;"|T7
|align="center" style="background:yellow;"|T6
|align="center"|T54
|align="center" style="background:yellow;"|T10
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|DNP
|-
|[[U.S. Open (golf)|U.S. Open]]
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|T44
|align="center"|T13
|align="center"|T19
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|DNP
|-
|[[The Open Championship]]
|align="center" style="background:yellow;"|T6
|align="center" style="background:#00ff00;"|'''1'''
|align="center"|T19
|align="center"|T70
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|WD
|-
|[[PGA Championship]]
|align="center"|T57
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|T69
|align="center"|66
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|CUT
|align="center"|DNP
|align="center"|DNP
|}
DNP = Did not play<br>
WD = Withdrew<br>
CUT = missed the half-way cut<br>
"T" indicates a tie for a place<br>
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10
==Trivia==
Reporting for CBS the 2007 ''[[The Barclays]]'' tournament, Baker-Finch was one of the thousands gathered around the 18th green as [[Rich Beem]] hit his approach shot. The shot hit straight on Baker-Finch's cheek and knocked him out, falling on his back behind the green. Baker-Finch recovered before Beem got to his ball.
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://www.pga.org.au/default.aspx?s=pgatourplayerprofiledisplay&pid=441 Profile on the PGA Tour of Australasia's official site]
*[http://www.pgatour.com/players/00/10/49 Profile on the PGA Tour's official site]
*[http://www.europeantour.com/publish.sps?pageid=127&pagegid=%7B20E6AA6B%2D0225%2D4C71%2DBD89%2D2ACBEE615D69%7D&playerId=5 Profile on the European Tour's official site]
{{The Open champions}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker-Finch, Ian}}
[[Category:Australian golfers]]
[[Category:PGA Tour of Australasia golfers]]
[[Category:European Tour golfers]]
[[Category:PGA Tour golfers]]
[[Category:Winners of men's major golf championships]]
[[Category:Golf writers and broadcasters]]
[[Category:1960 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[sv:Ian Baker-Finch]]