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Australian Open golf: Aaron Baddeley’s journey to hell and back

Aaron Baddeley is back where it all began. But the journey from 1999 to now has been a long test of faith.

Aaron Baddeley at the Australian Open pro-am at Royal Sydney yesterday. Picture: Phil Hilyard
Aaron Baddeley at the Australian Open pro-am at Royal Sydney yesterday. Picture: Phil Hilyard

Aaron Baddeley sits down. Jesus sits down next to him. Jesus is on his bag when he plays. Jesus is in his heart and mind. Thank God for that.

Baddeley won the Australian Open here at Royal Sydney in 1999 as an amateur. He was 18. It was 17 years ago. He won the Open again the following year as a professional. He said he wanted to be No 1 in the world. Wanted to be the next Tiger Woods. But better than Tiger.

In 2001 he won the Greg Norman International tournament. At the end of the year Baddeley had an upwardly mobile ranking of 146. Watch out Eldrick, he’s a ’coming.

Baddeley is now 35. He is ranked 149 in the world. He lost his tour card in 2015 — the worst year in his career — and he ended the season the 419th best player. But Jesus wasn’t going anywhere.

Baddeley addressed the media yesterday on the eve of the Australian Open. Back at Royal Sydney. Back at the Aaron Baddeley launchpad.

He had a sad story to tell. The young man with the simple and uncluttered swing. He would close his eyes before he hit each shot and he was so good you reckon he could hit the ball blindfolded. Putting? Hell, he could sink the Bismarck. He could beat Greg Norman and play at Augusta twice before he was 21.

Then he slowly turned into the man who, as he walked to the 11th tee at the John Deere Classic last year, admitted to himself he had no idea where his next shot would go. He was clueless. So much so that when he teed the ball up at the Barbasol Championship in July this year he had no tour card, no sponsor’s name on his cap, no sponsor’s name splashed on his bag. He was officially a no-name on a tour he was pre-ordained to dominate. But through all this Jesus still did his yardage. Baddeley won the tournament — his fourth on the tour — in a playoff. He threw his no-name cap into the ground and ran about the green in the dance of the born again.

Wonderfully Baddeley does not see this as a sad story. Missed opportunities maybe but no misgivings.

“I definitely think that after say, 2000, if you said that I had only won four times on the PGA Tour, I would have been surprised. I definitely feel like I’ve learnt a lot over those years. I feel like that if I didn’t have that experience that I’ve got, I think it’s going to hold me in good stead for the next, really for the rest of my career.

“Like I said, if I’d understood a few things back then that I understood now or if some people who were helping me at that time understood those things too, that could have been a different story, but my story is what it is, I wouldn’t change it. I’m just excited for where I’m at right now, the game that I’ve got right now and the direction I’m going,” Baddeley said.

It was, in Baddeley’s words, a cool week. He had felt his game returning, clicking back into place. He had figured it out.

“I was very confident going into that day (Sunday), because I was driving the ball the best I had probably ever and I was putting the ball nicely ... then just in the playoff I kept thinking I was going to wear him (Kim Si-woo) down because I was just driving the ball perfect every time and hitting it inside him on every hole. I knew at some point I was going to make a putt to win,” he said.

Baddeley was back from golfing hell. From watching YouTube and studying the swings of Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott to see how to swing the club. He was thinking like a hacker. Desperate.

“You’re trying to figure it out,” he says. “Here’s my swing and then here’s guys who hit the ball really well. And I’m trying to figure out what’s the difference?

“OK, Rory does this, Adam does this, Jason does this, Sergio does this; so you’re trying to look at all these guys and see what are the similarities and what’s different with me, and you’re trying to figure it out. I mean, it’s just like torture because you’re trying to figure it out.”

Reflection says Baddeley should have left his swing alone. It was good and he was great. But he stuck to his youthful pledge to be better than Tiger. So he swung and swung. Tinkered and tampered, adjusted and adapted. The more he searched for perfection the more imperfect he became. There was to be no miracle.

Rather than maintain his swing — keep the good bits in working order — he sought what in Tiger’s era he could never have.

“After ’99 if I’d understood how to maintain my swing, then things probably would have been a little bit different, but then I wouldn’t have the life I have right now. I wouldn’t have my relationship with the Lord, I wouldn’t have probably my wife and kids, so all things are great. It’s exciting,” he said.

Then Baddeley, with Jesus on his bag, got up and left the room. He might have lost his swing, he has never lost his faith. Hardly a sad story.

Read related topics:Australian Open Tennis

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/opinion/patrick-smith/aaron-baddeleys-journey-to-hell-and-back/news-story/32f9ea6eb3a37bd021c356f6e4b41411