Ian Baker-Finch Facts: 20 Things You Didn’t Know About The CBS Sports Analyst

Ian Baker-Finch has been a regular on US TV screens for over 25 years, and for majority of that time, he has been part of the CBS Sports broadcast team, where he is a golf analyst. 

Here are some of the facts you may not know about the Australian.

1. Ian Baker-Finch was born in Queensland, Australia on 24 October 1960 and grew up on a farm.

2. He has cited Peter Thomson and Jack Nicklaus as significant influences on his career. He received one-to-one tuition from Thomson and based his game on Nicklaus’s 1974 instructional book, Golf My Way.

3. Baker-Finch's dad was given 100 acres of land by the Forestry Department to build a golf course, which is where his son learned the game.

4. After receiving his first set of clubs at the age of 12, Baker-Finch left home at 15 to become an assistant club pro.

5. He turned pro in 1979 and initially played on the PGA Tour of Australasia.

6. His first professional win came at the 1983 New Zealand Open.

7. He played for Australia in the 1985 World Cup of Golf.

8. Baker-Finch went on to claim 17 professional wins, including the 1991 Open at Royal Birkdale.

9. That round included a 66 on the Sunday, which saw shoot 29 on the front nine.

10. He made headlines again in 1993 when he took a shot in his boxer shorts at Colonial after hitting his ball near water and not wanting to ruin his trousers.

11. Soon after winning The Open, Baker-Finch’s game suffered a dramatic decline that at one point saw him make only one cut in three years. It also included him famously hitting his opening tee shot out of bounds across the first and 18th fairways at the 1995 Open at The Old Course, St Andrews.

12. Unable to arrest his slump, he withdrew after hitting 92 in the first round of the 1997 Open and retired from tournament golf.

13. In his professional career, Baker-Finch won on four continents – Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia.

14. He was hired by ESPN and ABC Sports in 1998 as a commentator and occasional lead analyst before joining CBS Sports in 2007, where he remains an analyst.

15. Baker-Finch was a captain’s assistant to Gary Player at the 2003, 2005 and 2007 editions of the Presidents Cup.

16. He was Team Captain of the Australian men’s and women’s golf teams at the 2016 and 2020 Olympics.

17. In 2000, Baker-Finch was awarded the Australian Sports Medal for his achievements in the game.

18. In 2009, he was inducted into the Queensland Sport Hall of Fame.

19. He and his wife, Jennie, have two daughters, Hayley and Laura.

20. In a 2014 interview for CBS News, he said of Cypress Point: “There’s no more beautiful place in the world of golf.”