Matthew Baldwin’s remarkable journey from Amazon delivery driver to leading McIlroy and Fleetwood at Wentworth

Matthew Baldwin considered giving up golf only two years ago. He had spent half a decade on a seemingly fruitless mission to win back his card on the European Tour, now the DP World Tour. He was in his mid 30s, ready to get married and start a family, and his career was becoming untenable. He became a delivery driver to make ends meet, and not a very good one by the sounds of it.

“I had three or four months working at Amazon driving a van just to see me through the winter before the Challenge Tour started in 2022,” he said. “I remember pulling up to a block of flats, jumped out the van, got in the back and all of a sudden I feel like I’m moving and I’m like ‘oh no, I forgot to put the handbrake on’. So I’ve ran around the side, yanked the handbrake up, it still wouldn’t stop, yanked it more, it eventually stopped about this far short (inches) of a blue Fiesta.

“I learned a lot from that. I learned that there are other things that I could do in life, but I also learned that I really wanted to play golf.”

This was the naturally gifted 26-year-old who qualified for The Open in 2012, where he finished tied 23rd. He twice played in the US Open and competed with the world’s best in the Race to Dubai.

But form and fitness are fragile things in golf, perhaps more so than any sport. The line between competing with global superstars for million-dollar prizes and grinding on the sub-tours is razor thin, like a sheet of ice, and injury sent Baldwin plunging to the depths. He lost his tour card, but more worryingly he lost his edge. “I felt like I had absolutely no competitive drive in me. I had to learn all those feelings again.”

And so he did. Baldwin returned to Qualifying School, like a graduate re-taking his high school exams. It was a “horrible” experience, with all the bad bits of golf – the pressure, the nerves, the tension – and none of the good bits like the rewards, the crowds, the camaraderie. It was every man for himself and Baldwin had to fight his way out.

He climbed through the lesser celebrated Mena Tour, scrapped on the Challenge Tour and headed to Africa for the Sunshine Tour. Finally, at the end of 2022, Baldwin ended six years in the doldrums with a fourth-placed finish at the Challenge Tour final to get his hands on a DP World Tour card again. Four months later, aged 36, he was a champion, winning the SDC Championship in South Africa. Looking emotional and a little shell-shocked on the winners’ rostrum, Baldwin seemed to visibly let go of what he called a “tough few years”.

Here at Wentworth, he could go one better. There were glimpses of something brewing over recent weeks with top-20 finishes at the Czech and British Masters events. On the first two days at the BMW PGA Championship in Surrey it has all come together, to the point where he leads a star-studded field going into the weekend, piling pressure on Rory McIroy, Tommy Fleetwood and the rest of the chasing pack with opening rounds of 65 and 66. There is, perhaps, a great story brewing.

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Baldwin has, by his admission, “got in my own way” at times. “He can be hard on himself,” one of his clan told The Independent on Friday, among a harem of Baldwin’s friends and family members out in support at Wentworth, including his mother and brother. Baldwin remains based near Southport where he grew up and still plays at Royal Birkdale, where he honed his skills in windy conditions that proved so invaluable to that Tour win in blustery South Africa.

“He’s been gaining confidence with results,” his friend added. “He’s happy with his coach, his sports psychologist. He’s a family man, he’s very settled in life now.”

Ironically, Baldwin was making headlines a week ago with almost certainly the worst shot of his career, somehow managing to drive the ball between his own legs to a standstill about eight yards to his left. It was so bizarre he burst out laughing. He recovered with a hacked recovery iron, a lay-up, a spinning wedge and a clean putt to make what he later described with a grin as an “easy bogey”.

There were no such moments of levity here. Baldwin played flawlessly on Thursday to post a seven-under 65 and lead by one overnight, topping the tee-to-green charts. He was almost as good here on Friday, making his one and only bogey of the tournament so far at the 11th, when he found the rough with his drive and came up short of the green with his approach. He chipped to 12 yards but missed the par putt.

That stalled the day’s early momentum, having gone out early in the morning and rattled off five birdies in six holes to extend his overnight lead. He finished with two birdies in the final four holes to set the clubhouse lead at 13 under. It equalled the tournament record after two rounds, set by Paul McGinley in 2008, and it gave Baldwin a three-shot lead over France’s Antoine Rozner, who birdied his last five holes for a bogey-free 65.

The highlight of Baldwin’s closing stretch, which was briefly interrupted by a break for lightning (“I just sat down with one of my mates and chilled out with some carrot sticks,” he said) was the long par-four 15th, the hardest hole on the course. He found the rough on the left-hand side of the fairway and opted to boldly take on the pin with a hybrid wood. He flushed it, and the ball picked a narrow passage between two front bunkers before bouncing off a ridge and rolling to six feet.

When Baldwin did lose control of his ball, as he did when his approach to the 16th dropped short into a greenside bunker, he splashed out of the sand and then rolled home the putt from 12 feet with a relieved puff of the cheeks.

It was exactly the sort of situation he lost control of at his lowest ebb, the part of his game he had to work to fix. “I lost the intricate bits, your simple up and downs, they were becoming an issue. I lacked the ambition to get better at that.”

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At the same time as McIlroy sent a piercing tee shot up the first fairway to begin his second round, Baldwin was on the 18th trying to make one last birdie. He committed to a bold approach shot from the rough, which narrowly cleared the water defending the green, but duffed his chip and settled for par. It was a golden chance to turn the screw, to load a little more pressure on those behind him, and he may yet come to regret it.

But then more than anything, Baldwin just wanted to prove to himself that he could do it, that he could be on this stage again performing alongside the best. Just being here is an achievement, rubbing shoulders with the greats, attacking pins and feeling the edge. At Wentworth, he’s played golf without the handbrake.

“At the end of the day, we are all here trying our hardest,” he said. “At times, my hardest wasn’t good enough. Now I’m in a good place, mentally and physically, and enjoying what I’m doing. I’m incredibly proud of how I’ve played so far but there’s a long way to go. I’ll keep doing the same things, and it should be a good week.”