I won the Open at Birkdale. Six years later I was sobbing in the locker room

ROYAL BIRKDALE — Ian Baker-Finch’s name sticks out a bit at Birkdale.

This week is the 11th time an Open Championship has been staged here, and the list of previous winners is a rogue’s gallery of golfing greats: Lee Trevino, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Padraig Harrington, Jordan Spieth to name a few. No one has ever won the Open at Birkdale without having won another at some point in their career.

No one except Baker-Finch.

The Australian had come close twice before at the Open, so when he finally won it in 1991, many thought it might be the first of a glut, or at least a handful.

But just six years later his career was over, a once-great golfer left sobbing on the floor of the locker room because it had slipped through his fingers.