VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Photo Credit: Newsday

Brattleboro

Golf

Inducted 2024

Shawn Baker distinguished himself in high school competition before going on to dominate the Vermont golf landscape for the better part of a decade. He won five a record five Vermont Amateurs in a seven-year span and became the first Vermonter to win a New England Amateur championship.

A 1981 graduate of Brattleboro Union High School, Baker won an individual Division I high school state title while leading the Colonels to the team championship, then went on to become a three-time Division II All-American for Central Connecticut State (1983, 1984 and 1985), where he finished third in the D-II national championship as an individual.

Baker burst upon the Vermont Amateur scene at Ralph Myhre Golf Course in Middlebury in 1983, when he charged from behind in the final round to win the first of his five crowns. He added three consecutive victories: 1985 at Country Club of Barre; 1986 at Crown Point Country Club in Springfield, where he won by 10 shots); and 1987 at Orleans Country Club. A superb putter, Baker won his last Vermont Amateur title at Woodstock Country Club in 1989 to set a Vermont Amateur record since it switched to the stroke-play format.He followed up his victory at Woodstock with his New England Amateur championship at Rutland Country Club, taking the lead on the first day with a 5-under par 65 and going wire-to-wire in victory.

He currently is a PGA professional at the Mahopac Golf and Beach Club in Putnam County, New York. His pro career included an appearance at the 2005 Barclays Classic. Baker also qualified for the 2015 PGA Senior Championship. 

Baker was inducted into the Central Connecticut State Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Brattleboro High Athletic Hall of Fame in 2022.