by Greensboro, NC – After 30 years of broadcasting the PGA Tour, Ian Baker -Finch signed CBS Sports on Sunday with the final broadcast of the network season at Wyndham Championship.
“Since I made the decision, this is the best I have felt for a long time,” he said.
Baker-Finch said he started fighting the decision last year at the Masters and the RBC Heritage when he realized that he represented his 40th birthdayth Year to play or announce to these events.
“This is what made me think, what is the next one?” he explained.
During his player career, his powerful swing and his competitive spirit were his appeal. Later, his charming personality and his soothing voice added to his inheritance. The Australian won the 1991 British Open in Royal Birkdale as a player and after losing his match a few years later, he had a transition to the announcement, spending the last 19 years with CBS.
By coincidence, its remarkable history is detailed in an authorized fascinating biography, Ian Baker-Finch: in hell and returnwhich must be officially published on Monday. Baker-Finch was presented to the golf course by his father, who, with his colleagues farmers, helped to build Beerwah Golf Club, a course of nine holes built on 100 acres of pine forest in the Sunshine hinterland of Queensland just six miles from the family farm.
Baker -Finch received his first clubs – a putter 2, 3, 5 and 7 and a putter – on his 12 yearsth Birthday, and was the only student in his school to play the game. He worked on local farms to earn enough money to build a full set at $ 15 per club. He obtained his first match set at 14 and a year later, in 1975, he received the educational book of Jack Nicklaus Golf in my own wayWho has become his golf bible, as his parents’ birthday present. Since these humble beginnings, he left school at 15 to pursue a career in the game.
“I had this dream of being a professional club, giving lessons and being part of the fabric of a club,” recalls Baker-Finch. “I never thought I would be an open champion.”
For many golf fans, the 1984 open in St. Andrews represented the first real Baker-Finch splash on the world scene. He held a share of the advance of 54 holes and played with Tom Watson in the last couple before Skyer at 79. Jim Nantz, who would become his longtime friend and his broadcast partner at CBS, remembers having been dazzled by Baker-Finch’s play. “He was only 23 years old and it could be said that he was going to be a star,” said Nantz.
Baker-Finch would go beyond his wildest dreams by winning the 1991 Open in Royal Birkdale. During the final round, Baker-Finch sank a 15-foot birdie at Par-3 seventh to go 5 sous for the day. He looked up at the ranking while he was heading for the eighth T-shirt and realized that he had a five-stroke lead. “I said to myself,” Bloody Hell, don’t stuff it from here. I will not be allowed to go home, ”he wrote in his biography.
Pete Bender compared Caddying for Baker-Finch that week at the secretariat, the champion thoroughbred racing horse, and all he had to do was. During his victory speech, Baker-Finch said: “The pain of the other two times I had the chance to do so gave me the strength to do it today. I will cherish this trophy forever.”
Within the three years following his open conquest, his game was in tatters. The Australian PGA 1993 championship was the last of 17 victories as a professional golfer. In 1995, he played in 15 tournaments on the PGA Tour and missed each cup. He struck Rock Bottom at the 1997 Open in Troon, pulling 92 in the first round and withdrew. At 36, six years old after being praised as a golfer champion of the year, his playing career was over. To date, he regrets playing this Too tour because the scar fabric has become too deep. “If I hadn’t played that day,” he thought, “I may have come back to play, but it was the time for a sliding door to the television career.”
Baker-Finch had tried on television the previous year on television while nursing nursing injuries in Australia and were main analyst for the four networks of his native country during the summer part of the calendar and contributing to the open championship for ABC. His producer at the time, Jack Graham called her and said, “I know you would like to come back to play, but if you don’t do it, you have a job with us.”
As a diffuser, he was a talented storyteller determined to follow the principles of “less it’s more”. He wanted to glean new information from players.
“There was always a heat quotient,” said CBS CBS commentator Jim Nantz. “Everyone loves Ian. His true kindness has always shone.”
“Everything Finchy said had a meaning and a goal,” said CBS golf sellers producer. “While our companion is moving away, he leaves 19 memorable years at CBS Sports defined by integrity, excellence and kindness. Retirement is an appropriate reward for someone who gave so many things to the game – and all of us. ”
Calling the fifth green jacket for Tiger Woods in 2019 and Rory McILroy finishing the big career slam is among the strengths of his distribution career. When Adam Scott became the first Australian golfer to put on the green jacket, Nantz launched the called to Baker-Finch, the compatriot of Scott, Queenslander, who said: “Bas to the top of the world, Jim”.
Baker-Finch is 65 years old in October and his last contract was planned. His desire to make the necessary preparation to disseminate at the highest level 23 weeks per year had decreased. “I never want to arrive at the point where the producer and the team must protect the heritage, if you want. I am not yet there, but at almost 65 years old, you start to feel this,” he said.
Baker-finch is looking forward to traveling and enjoying various wine regions and playing more golf course, “and working a little about my game because that’s what I like to do,” he said. He will spend more time with his wife Jenny and his daughters and grandchildren. On March, he will go to New Zealand while he and Jenny appreciated this year more than three months in Australia, playing a pile of golf course in the Melbourne sand belt region while doing everything at his own pace. He will keep his hands busy doing work on the design of golf courses and to go to several of the biggest golf events for meetings in his role as chairman of the board of directors of the Australian PGA. He expects his final show to be emotional because the CBS broadcast team has become a second family and for three decades, he has been one of the full voices that make up the game band.
“I hope people saw me as someone who loved the game and respected the players and brought a calm and honest perspective to the cover,” he said. “I have never been about me. I am sort of uncomfortable when something concerns me. “”
