Golf Vic Vol 60 No 3 2019

is 'owning' his swing again. “It’s really quite simple compared with what it used to be,” he says. “Right now, I’ve got those keys that I work on, and I can understand why the Justin Thomases, the Justin Roses, the Jason Days can play good all the time or often, or go out and shoot one-over one day and then shoot six-under the next day. Because they just work on the same things. “It’s not like they’re trying to reinvent the wheel the next day. It’s like: ‘Hey, I know what I’m doing. I’ve just got to go out and do it. There was one little thing off on a particular day. It’s one 15-minute session and you’re back hitting it good’. That’s what it’s like for me.” He does not even practise as hard as he used to; doesn’t feel the need. “I’mworking hard but I don’t need to put in 10-hour days,” he says. “That’s not what’s required. It’s more some practice hours and then some games with friends for money where you have to hit the shot or make the up-and-down or make the putt to win the hole or the match or whatever it is. That’s where I’m at right now. It’s more like that rather than trying to find a game or build a game. The game’s built. It’s a matter of keeping it sharp.” Baddeley was a wunderkind from the time he won the Croydon club championship at 14 but the graph did not always head north. Needless to say, it rarely does – and he points to Jordan Spieth, the former world number one who slid outside the top 30 in the early part of 2019, as an example similar to his own. “He (Spieth) did some stuff that – I think he said – he didn’t realise that he did. It was just done naturally and now he’s had to learn why he did that and how he did that. I think if only I had the experience that I have now, if I had the knowledge that I have now when I was 22 years old, how different that would be. But the only way you get experience is to have the experience. You can’t read a book or have someone explain to you experience.” While he has not met the incredibly high expectations that were held for him, he has hardly been a failure. If he stopped playing tomorrow, he’d go down as one of our best ever players. He’s won four times on the main tour along with two national championships, stayed on tour for two decades, and accumulated $US21 million in prizemoney. And in any case, he sees it as very much a work in progress. He has set a target of making the International team at the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne in December, and he embraces the future. “I definitely believe that my best golf’s in front of me,” he says. “There’s not even a question about it, the best is yet to come. The reason I can say that is that I have an understanding of my whole game. It’s at a level that it’s never been before. It’s the simplicity of it. I’m able to take breaks, not touch a club, and I come back and it’s not like I’m experimenting. I’m not experimenting with anything, in the sense of ‘let’s try this’ or ‘let’s try that, it could work’. No, I’ve got my blueprint, I know what works, and I just go and do some work on that blueprint.” Season USPGA $Earnings USPGA Ranking World Ranking 1998 0 0 787 1999 0 0 194 2000 0 0 129 2001 19,435 0 146 2002 16,380 0 146 2003 989,168 73 108 2004 632,876 123 207 2005 1,006,006 78 170 2006 1,516,513 55 87 2007 3,441,119 10 18 2008 1,665,587 49 36 2009 837,065 101 139 2010 879,317 110 274 2011 3,094,693 20 46 2012 1,215,753 76 78 2013 721,024 113 191 2014 942,559 102 247 2015 439,925 165 419 2016 1,644,915 61 130 2017 755,356 132 214 2018 725,928 134 284 USPGA 2006 Verizon Heritage Classic 2007 Phoenix Open 2011 Northern Trust Open 2016 Barbasol Championship Australasian PGA 1999 Australian Open 2000 Australian Open 2001 Greg Norman International 2007 Australian Masters T O U R N A M E N T W I N S B A D D E L E Y B Y T H E N U M B E R S 12 Golf Victoria