Moment in the Sun

He won the British Open and was one of the best players in the world. Then he suffered the most devastating slump in the game's history.David Duval? No, Ian Baker-Finch. Well, guess what? Finchy's doing just fine

Ian at home with Laura, Hayley and Jennie in North Palm Beach, Fla.

Photo: Eric Larson

By Peter McDaniel

Photo By Eric Larson

January 2005

Every golfer has experienced frustration and embarrassment on some scale, but Ian Baker-Finch was a major-championship winner and one of the best players in the world before he descended into a slump of epic proportions.

How bad was it? Think of David Duval's recent woes and you have just a hint of how Baker-Finch suffered shortly after winning the 1991 British Open. He missed 32 cuts in a row on the PGA Tour from 1994-'97, to the point that he joked about being named Australia's Father of the Year for always being home with his family on weekends.

Baker-Finch listened to thousands of suggestions from friends and strangers, but it only led to a classic case of paralysis by analysis. The nadir was shooting a 92 in the 1997 British Open at Troon. At that point Baker-Finch, who left home at 15 to become an assistant club pro, made the decision to walk away from competition--but not the game. Today, Baker-Finch, 44, remains a fixture on ABC-TV's golf telecasts. He sat down with Golf Digest for four long conversations, showing remarkable candor about his life on tour. (And speaking of revealing, he tells the story of doffing his pants to play a shot from a hazard.)

Baker-Finch remains upbeat, and he's even entertaining a notion of putting his game back on display. If you're the kind of player who stripes it on the practice range but loses it on the golf course, you'll empathize with a guy who tried to survive on tour battling the same demons.

Golf Digest: Does it bother you that no matter how good of a TV analyst you become you might always be remembered as a British Open champion who completely lost his game?

Ian Baker-Finch: No, I'm comfortable with that. I'm sure there are a number of people who know me as that guy, but I think more people know me now as "the Aussie guy on TV." I know me, and I'm comfortable with where I'm headed.

We hear you're still competitive playing against pros in non-tournament settings. Is that the least bit satisfying?

It's great; I love it. I don't have any bad feelings at all about the golf gods or feel like I've been dealt a bad hand. I try to play every day.

No way you can get it back competitively?

No. It's been over a decade. I won one major; I was an OK player for 10 years. A lot of guys have gone through it, and I really admire the ones who've come out of it. But some guys, like Seve, are done. Must be hell for him. David Duval, No. 1 in the world, won the Open Championship ... It's been hell, although I think David's probably a happier person now because he's got a great new life.

Is that any consolation? I mean, you have a great life.

I've been given a mulligan. I've stopped being able to play well. I had to find something else to do. I was only in my mid-30s, and I got this opportunity to do some television work, and I ran with it. It's like that life's gone and this life has started.

Your biggest victory came in the 1991 Open at Birkdale. The story is that someone put almost $250,000 on you to win at 50-to-1 odds the week before the championship, and that the bet paid off more than $12 million.

Really? I had heard that I was the worst result ever for the bookies at that stage, but I didn't think it was that much money. A lot of players put money on me because I had been playing great for a year and I'd just lost in a playoff the week before.

Did you have a bet on yourself that week?

No. I never did when I was playing. But I could name 10 players who did. David Frost, Nick Price, both of their caddies, Fulton Allem ...

Which one made the most?

Dave McNeilly, Nick Price's caddie. Dave won enough that he bought a new car when he got home. He says, "Finchy, did I ever tell you that you bought me a car?" He's probably told me 10 times now.

How much do you figure winning that major earned you?

It had to have made me a couple million dollars over that next couple of years--the endorsement value and appearance fees around the world. But more than anything now, everyone fears what happens after a major: "Don't get too far ahead of yourself, because what happened to Finchy could happen to us." Through the mid-'90s, I could sense that in a lot of my friends' demeanor. It was almost like, Oh, you poor bastard; I hope it doesn't happen to me.

Some of those buddies went back a long way with you, to the developmental tours in Australia, and there were some characters. What was the weirdest thing that ever happened to you back then?

One of my greatest memories is from the Sunshine Tour through Queensland. Wayne Grady, John Downs, 10 of us got together, rented a bus for the two or three months. Well, John and I were the drivers. There was a cage behind us, thank God, and the others nicknamed us Mom and Dad. He was Mom and I was Dad, and the others sat in the back and drank beer and sang all of the great songs from the '70s. To this day, I know every word from every Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Creedence Clearwater Revival song.

One day we had a big drum full of beer and ice in the back. John and I, we were driving, but all the guys in the back decided, as we're driving through this town, they'd all get naked and flash the cars going past. Way too much to drink. A car in front of me stopped quickly, and I had to take the bus off the road down into a ditch. Drove it up through the ditch and back up onto the road.