Dear Newgolfer,
Short answer: Aaron Baddeley is a great putter (at the present) who doesn't have deep knowledge about what works and why, so he is susceptible to streakiness without the ability to correct his poor performance mid-round.
Long answer:
A 3-putt from 8 feet on the first hole, when you start with a 2-stroke lead in the final round of the US Open over Tiger Woods? Good grief! Actually, Baddeley botched the first hole with his full swing initially, and then with his putting:
"Not everyone handled the emotion of a Sunday at Oakmont. Aaron Baddeley, who slept on a two-shot lead over Woods, stumbled at the start. He missed the fairway on the par-4 first hole when his tee shot sailed right, and he missed the green short and right with his approach. He hit his chip shot so far to the left that it rolled off the green and left his next chip shot about 10 feet short.
He took three more putts and walked away with a triple-bogey 7, the beginnings of a lost day playing alongside Woods."
New York Times, 18 June 2007
"No worries, since the butts of his closest pursuers mostly went in up in flames with no help from Cabrera whatsoever. Indeed, it took perhaps 15 minutes for the tone to be set for Sunday's final round, as overmatched Aussie Aaron Baddeley made a complete mess of his first hole. Baddeley, the 54-hole leader, began the day two strokes ahead of playing partner Tiger Woods and played the first hole at Oakmont like a 12-handicaper, taking four shots to get the ball on the green, then three-putting for a triple-bogey. As far as being in the mix, he was never heard from again.
Triple-bogeys, however, were.
As he walked to the second hole, flipping his ball in his hand, Badds had a smirk on his face. [Said Johnny Miller: "That's like a boxer who smiles after getting nailed, trying to show he is not hurt."] Perhaps he knew something we didn't -- because the rest of the day was filled with pileups and derailments that resembled actual wreckage from the turnpike and railroad lines that run through the club property.
Perhaps we should have seen it coming. In what has become a seemingly annual ritual, Baddeley became the fourth player in four years who failed to break 80 when playing in the final group, joining Jason Gore and Retief Goosen (Pinehurst 2005) and Ernie Els (Shinnecock 2004)."
CBS Sportsline, 18 June 2007
I think Aaron Baddeley's Sunday "implosion" at the 2007 US Open happened in three stages: Hole 1 (triple), Hole 7 (double), Back 9 (4 bogey-ful, birdie-less).
Stage 1: 1st Hole:
Specifically, Baddeley blamed his speed control or touch:
"Baddeley, who was 2-over par through three rounds, never turned on his putter like he had prior to Sunday. Though he settled down on the course, the Australian missed birdie putts at holes 5 and 7, which were just as costly as the triple. At that point, despite the opening-hole horror, he was still either tied or within one shot of the lead.
''I just didn't have the speed today,'' he said. ''The first two greens are really quick, and the next three weren't quite as naked out as those.''
Morning Call, Allentown PA, 18 June 2007
Despite the first hole disaster, Baddeley felt like he kept his composure. This is what Aaron says:
Baddeley bemoans his balky putter
BY ED SHERMAN
June 18, 2007
OAKMONT, Pa. -- Aaron Baddeley likes to use visualization. But when he closed his eyes on the first tee Sunday, he couldn't have imagined the train wreck that awaited him.
Going into the final round with a two-shot lead, Baddeley made a triple-bogey 7 on the first hole, and it went downhill from there. He wound up with an 80, dropping him to a tie for 13th at 12 over par.
It might have been different if Baddeley had made an 8-footer to save bogey on the first hole. Instead, he missed that putt and the next one too.
"If I make a few putts on the front nine, then all of a sudden, who knows?" Baddeley said. "You're right there."
Baddeley, playing for the first time in the final group in a major, insisted the opening hole didn't rattle him.
"I wasn't flushed at all," Baddeley said. "I didn't want to start out with a triple, but I was just like, 'Well, I'm just one off the lead. If I could play 17 good holes, I still have a chance to win.' "
Chicago Tribune, 18 June 2007
"Baddeley, normally an erratic driver but an excellent putter, went from a two-shot lead to a stroke behind with a triple-bogey on the first hole, after he inexplicably three-putted from just over two metres.
"I finally got it in the hole," Baddeley said afterwards, trying to find some humour in a horror 55th hole.
Maybe it was playing with Woods. Maybe Baddeley looked around and realised where he was and what he was playing for, but he never displayed the form that led to 72-70-70 over his first three rounds.
"That seven on No. 1 definitely hurt," he said. "But I looked at it and said 'this isn't over. I still have a chance'. When I walked off the green, I wasn't all that disappointed."
Baddeley tried not to let the triple get to him, making par on the next five holes. But he missed one makeable birdie putt after another and a double-bogey six at the difficult 438-metre seventh effectively ended any chance at a comeback.
"If I make a few putts on the front nine," he said, "then, all of a sudden, who knows? I had no momentum with me at all.
"I knew I had to do something to fight back, but I never got it together."
Baddeley's 80 was the worst fourth-round score by any of the top-50 finishers. He couldn't really explain how his round got away from him. His preparation was the same and he didn't feel unusually nervous when he arrived at the course.
"Everything was the same as it's always been," he said. "I had a good night's sleep and I spent some quiet time with my family."
The Age, Sydney, 18 June 2007
Stage 2: Hole 7:
Baddeley didn't putt well at all during Sunday's round, and blew a couple of birdie chances on the front nine that might have righted his ship.
"Paired with Tiger Woods, the Australian had reasonable expectations of duking it out with the world No. 1. For the first 54 holes his putter was a magic wand. It had made golf balls disappear with hardly more than a single stroke.
But yesterday, on the first, Baddeley had to wave that very same rod five times until the ball vanished. The 26-year-old reacted with a sheepish smile and salute to the silent grandstand.
"I was just happy to finally get the ball in the hole," he dead-panned afterwards. "To be honest I wasn't fussed because I was still only one shot off the lead."
The religious 26-year-old could forgive – but not forget.
His opening hole debacle inflicted a cut that seeped seven more bogeys. The bleeding was so bad that Baddeley's pars had the curative effect of a Band-Aid on an axe wound. "I'm disappointed for sure," he lamented. "It was a tough start, but I didn't putt very well – that's the main thing.
"I probably shot the highest score I could have. The longest putt I holed was 4½ feet on the 17th. You can't win a major doing that."
The first hole might have cost Baddeley his lead, but the fifth and sixth cost him any hope of reclaiming it. The tournament's best putter had short chances for birdie on each and blew both.
"I missed a couple of six-footers," he said. "Who knows what would have happened if I made them. I had no momentum with me at all."
He insisted Woods and the heaving crowds were not a factor.
"I learned a lot off Tiger - just the way he thinks about his shots and takes his time," he said.
However until he puts it into practice, Baddeley knows yesterday's round will haunt him.
"That happens when you shoot 80 on the last day," Baddeley said.
"It doesn't matter what people write or say -- that doesn't affect how I value myself.
"I can't say I would have done a whole lot different -- I just would have putted better."
Putting Baddeley, Melbourne Herald Sun, 19 June 2007
"Baddeley's main trouble in the final round was his flat stick. After that shaky three-jack on the first, he had real good looks at birdie on Nos. 2 and 5. Each putt shaved the edge and stayed out.
"I had no momentum with me at all," he said. "If I make those two putts, I've got some momentum going with me. I just didn't have the speed today."
PennLive.com, Harrisburg PA Patriot-News, 18 June 2007
This is the Australian opinion that now classes Baddeley's 2007 US Open Sunday with Greg Norman's 1996 Masters collapse:
Aaron's true test yet to come
Trevor Grant
June 19, 2007 12:00am
IF YOU happen to be like Aaron Baddeley and embrace every day as a good news story, you would be celebrating the fact he completed his best finish in a major championship at the US Open yesterday.
However, if you are more inclined towards the unvarnished truth, you would be wondering if the young Australian might ever recover from the experience of starting the last day as a two-shot leader and finishing it tied for 13th, seven shots from the winner, Argentine Angel Cabrera.
The raw facts show Baddeley's final round of 10-over 80 was the worst score among the top 50 players in the 63-man field, was 11 shots worse than Cabrera, and eight shots worse than playing partner, Tiger Woods.
It was a day of abject failure from his very first shot, a three-wood that landed in the ankle-deep Oakmont rough and led to a triple-bogey seven after a jittery three-putt from four metres.
After one hole, Baddeley had forfeited the two-shot lead he told us he had slept so soundly upon, and entered the real-life nightmare of a professional golfer who simply looked in the wrong place at the wrong time on the day that counts most, and reveals most.
Baddeley appeared demoralised from the moment he walked off the first green and there was nothing about his game that suggested he had the inner strength to turn it around. Catapulted into esteemed company in this arena for the first time -- his previous best from 11 majors was tied for 52nd at this year's US Masters -- he was the first to be counted out.
The most tell-tale sign came when he had the putter in hand. It wasn't that he kept missing, but the fact that he failed time and again to get the ball to the hole.
The combination of fearsome speed and undulation ensures the Oakmont greens provide close to the toughest test in any major championship. But Baddeley's greatest asset is the flatstick and these surfaces certainly accentuated it in the first three rounds, when he was the only player to stay below 30 putts per round.
Yesterday, though, he ballooned to 34 putts, losing all the steely-eyed purpose and confidence that has characterised his rise to the top of the putting statistics on the US Tour.
Baddeley, 26, dearly wanted to etch in his name in history. He's done it all right, but not as he planned, on the silver trophy.
Rather, his name is now forever linked to one of the most spectacular collapses in US Open, and Australian golf history. It ranks with the final-round 81 of three-shot leader Retief Goosen at the 2005 Open at Pinehurst, though Goosen could console himself knowing his name was already on the trophy twice.
In Australian terms, it wasn't as dramatic as Greg Norman's capitulation to Nick Faldo at the 1996 US Masters, because Baddeley had only a two-shot, 54-hole lead while Norman led by six and lost by five.
But no one who watched it yesterday will forget in a hurry the harrowing sight of the young Melburnian's entire game shattering like a china vase dropped on a marble floor.
It's the job of picking up those pieces and putting them back together that can prove so difficult.
Norman did not win another major after 1996, and there is an ample body of evidence to suggest that the impact of that Sunday at the Masters was the reason.
There's no telling how it will affect Baddeley.
He has youth on his side, but these sort of rounds can sear souls forever. For others, it can galvanise the spirit and awaken a desire to atone that knows no bounds.
Baddeley spoke at length in the lead-up to Sunday about learning so much from those desperate times a few years ago when, he revealed, he came close to giving the game away.
We are about to find out how much."
Herald-Sun, Melbourne, 19 June 2007
Stage 3: Back Nine:
Made nothing, except four bogeys (10th-11th, 15th, 18th), compared to previous three days: 3 bogeys, 6 birdies.
Perhaps the best perspective is that of his caddie:
Baddeley pleads: my kingdom for a putt
Robert Lusetich, Oakmont
June 19, 2007
THE crowd erupted as Aaron Baddeley holed a bunker shot at Oakmont Country Club yesterday. Unfortunately for the 26-year-old Australian, that little bit of magic occurred in the practice area before yesterday's final round of the US Open.
Baddeley's veteran Californian caddie, Pete Bender, seemed confident as his man took a two-shot lead to the first tee. He noted that he had been on the bag when Greg Norman won his first major, the 1986 British Open, and also when another Australian, Ian Baker Finch, claimed his only major, at Royal Birkdale, in 1991.
"Me and Australians winning their first major, might be a good sign, eh?" he said with a smile.
The smiles, however, evaporated in the steamy Midwestern air along with Baddeley's lead.
The Australian made an inexplicable triple bogey on the opening hole. His tee shot was pushed, an eight iron found the unforgiving greenside rough to the right, but from there the mistakes betrayed a player who'd lost his nerve: a poor chip went through the green, another left a testing bogey putt of eight feet, followed by a double-bogey putt of five feet.
Baddeley mockingly smiled and raised his hand when he pulled the ball out of the cup for his seven. That sort of gallows humour has permeated this most brutal of championships.
Baddeley, a man of God who could just be the world's most fervent optimist, told himself that the horror start was no big deal.
"To be honest, I wasn't that fussed because I was still only one off the lead," he said. "I thought I was playing nice and it was just one of those holes."
Bender felt the need to quickly plug a suddenly leaky boat.
"I told him, 'We've got 17 holes left. If we're going to have a bad hole, let's have it on the first hole'," he said.
But it was Baddeley's putting stroke which had deserted him. Baddeley, who led the field in putting during the first three rounds, had good birdie looks at the second, fourth - a par-five which he three-putted for par - fifth and sixth holes and missed them all. When he hooked his tee shot on the demanding par-four seventh, the resulting double bogey fatally wounded his chance of becoming the second Australian in successive years to hoist this trophy.
"I knew we were in trouble when we double-bogeyed seven," Bender said. "It just wasn't meant to be today. I hate to say that, but it just wasn't his day."
It didn't get any better: Baddeley imploded with a 10-over-par 80, finishing seven shots behind winner Angel Cabrera. His tie for 13th, if there was a silver lining to a dark day, is his highest finish in a major.
"The thing is he had command of his speed on the greens the first three days but he didn't have it today," Bender said.
"Couldn't make a putt out there. I'd have paid for a putt, just to get some momentum going but we couldn't do it."
Baddeley, as is his wont, preferred to focus on the bright side, although that, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder.
"I'm disappointed for sure," he said. "I didn't putt very well, that was the main thing. I thought I really hit the ball nicely, hit the ball well and I had a lot of birdie opportunities on that front side and if a few of those had fallen who knows what would have happened.
"But I'm very encouraged because of the position I got myself into, knowing that I can compete at a major like this, probably the toughest major. This is a step to go on to bigger and better things.
"I'm not discouraged at all."
Pressed on what he needed to do to win a major, Baddeley fingered the putter.
"I was surprised to be honest, the way I putted. I felt like I had 40 something putts. It was one of those days," he said.
He said he now looked forward to the British Open, next month at Carnoustie.
"Knowing I can play well enough that I can get in this position to have a two-shot lead going into the final round of a US Open, that's such a positive to think about," he said.
"Obviously, it didn't work out the way I wanted, but I feel like I can now go to the next major and I feel like I can compete there.
"I would have thought this was the last major that I'd have a chance to win because I didn't drive it so straight. Now it's nearly the opposite. I was talking to my caddie saying I really enjoy this major because I feel like my driving's so much improved that I can compete and win this event.
"I got a taste of it, that's what I was thinking out there. I know I can compete in a major and have a chance to win"
With that he embraced his wife, Richelle, whose smile tried hard to hide her disappointment.
"My stomach was turning the whole day," she said.
Baddeley's parents had flown from Melbourne to be here. His father, Ron, offered consolation: the experience was all part of growing up, he said.
The Australian, 18 June 2007
In my opinion,
as I have said before, relying exclusively on instincts as opposed to detailed knowledge of what works and why, is a recipe for streakiness and long-term decline. Jose Maria Olazabal is about the only exception to this rule, and I was wondering if Aaron Baddeley would be another Olazabal. Apparently not. When you don't really know what works and why, for example -- speed control on 14+ stimp greens -- you have a very difficult time knowing how to get back in the saddle when a problem crops up. Apparently, Aaron baddeley is a great putter who doesn't know why his putting works. At age 26, he better get a handle on that.
Incidentally, Baddeley and Stan Utley are appearing together in a charity event in Minneapolis:
"Baddeley and short-game guru Stan Utley agreed weeks ago to fly from their Arizona homes to the Twin Cities next week and spend a day with eight recreational golfers to raise money for a charity chapter that friend and fellow Australian Josh Taylor directs here."
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 19 June 2007
Hope Kids, Phoenix AZ, Brochure for June 26, 2007, Minneapolis program
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
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