“To win these days, you’ve got to have a bit of bastard in you,” David Leadbetter said many years ago, referring to one of his best-known students.

That was the problem, the instructor continued. Ian Baker-Finch didn’t have the slightest traces of that.

On Sunday afternoon, roughly three decades removed from Leadbetter’s remarks, Baker-Finch’s character was once more a topic of golf-world conversation. This time around, though, his kindness was celebrated as a strength.

“Whatever you think of Ian Baker-Finch being in your home the last thirty years, and I know it’s a great feeling having him as a friend from far away,” CBS’ Jim Nantz said. “Whatever you thought he was like, it’s ten times better. He’s one of the the great people all of us at CBS will ever know.”

Nantz was speakin

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