TOUR Insider: Baker-Finch adds intrigue to Colonial
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
In the end, the fear simply got the best of him.
To play golf on the PGA TOUR, even after winning a major championship, you can't be worried about where the ball is going. You can't obsess over a missed putt. You can't be scared to pencil in the bogeys.
"You have to be bulletproof," Ian Baker-Finch explained. "The guys out here that play well are bulletproof."
Instead, the affable Aussie felt wounded after the 1997 Open Championship. He had all but given up the game the previous year after missing 13 straight cuts, but friends convinced the 1991 champion to play at Royal Troon that year.
Baker-Finch practiced so hard that his back got stiff. His swing was a foot shorter than normal due to the nerves. The brutal 40-mph winds in the first round certainly didn't help, either, and after shooting 92, the two-time PGA TOUR champ was done.
"That was really when I said, 'Why keep doing it?" Baker-Finch recalled. "If it means so much to me that I fear shooting a bad score, I shouldn't be doing it. ...
"I can admit it now, I'm old enough, it doesn't really trouble me. I'm an announcer. I'm not a TOUR player anymore."
This week, though, Baker-Finch leaves the CBS broadcast booth and returns to his previous life as he tees it up in the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. The popular 48-year-old made the tournament his first TOUR victory 20 years ago, and the players are glad to see him back.
"It's awesome," Geoff Ogilvy, a fellow Aussie, said. "... I think he has been playing every day for the last 15 years. He is right into it. Hopefully he plays well. I know he plays well at home. He is the nicest guy out here. I think everybody hopes to see him play some competitive golf again. That's part of the cool part of this tournament -- we got all of these past champions coming to play."
Baker-Finch's playing partners on Thursday and Friday are Tim Clark and Justin Rose. Clark was 13 when Baker-Finch won at Colonial; Rose was just nine. The moment of truth in the first round comes at 10:02 a.m. ET at the 10th tee.
"I would like to be able to prove to myself that I can go out there and be smart enough to be able to talk myself into the fact that I can relax and go play the game again like I know I can play today or last week with my buddies at home," Baker-Finch said.
"There shouldn't be any reason why if you can just control your emotions."
Baker-Finch last cashed a check on the PGA TOUR in 1994 when he made $12,850 for finishing 47th at the NEC World Series of Golf. He has only played competitively once since that embarrassing day at Royal Troon, shooting 74-77 at Colonial in 2001.
The self-described golf junkie still plays three to four times a week, though. A16-time winner worldwide, Baker-Finch also remains close to the game due to his duties at CBS, and he's sure his bid this week will be scrutinized.
"They will probably show a slim 28-year-old on one side and a fat 48-year-old on the other, and have fun with it," Baker-Finch said. "I'm totally happy with all of that. I'm really, really looking forward to it."
Baker-Finch played a practice round earlier this week with Tommy Armour III, a two-time TOUR winner who turns 50 in October, and 51-year-old Fulton Allem, who, like Baker-Finch, is also a former champ at Colonial. His long-time friends understand the task at hand.
"It's not going to be easy," Baker-Finch said. "It's certainly going to be more difficult Thursday than it was (in the practice round). But to come back and have a game around a place that I just absolutely love is going to be a lot of fun."
Colonial is familiar, but different at the same time. Baker-Finch loves the rough, which is juicy in some places but patchy in others. The bunkers are deeper and further from the tees than when he last played; the greens a bit more elevated with run-offs at the back.
"I think they really maintained the way the course was 20 years ago where you had to shape it off the tees," he said.
Baker-Finch says he still hits the ball straight like he did in his heyday when he regularly averaged more than 70 percent in driving accuracy. His putter has held up, too, although he knows the difference will come in trusting his stroke when he gets under the gun.
"I could do that then," he said. "I'm not sure I can do it now."
Baker-Finch is eagerly anticipating the challenge, though. In some ways, his return has been seamless. He played in the Monday pro-am; met with the media Tuesday. He's joined the men he regularly reports on hitting balls at the range.
"I'm really like a fish out of water in a lot of ways because this isn't what I do anymore," Baker-Finch said. "But in other ways I feel like, hey, I just fitted right in. ... And I hope that I can take this comfort level to the first tee Thursday because I know I can play."
When he puts the peg into the 10th tee Thursday morning, though, Baker-Finch knows his mind will be racing. The pressure that drove him out of the game is sure to return. He's older, though, wiser, too, and the Aussie has nothing to lose.
"If I play well and stay relaxed, I think I can maybe not compete for the plaid jacket, but I certainly feel if I play well, I can be around on Sunday," Baker-Finch said. "That's how I intend to see it and that's what I intend to try and do."
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