Aaron Baddeley parlays late exemption to top-10 finish at Sony Open in Hawaii

HONOLULU – Aaron Baddeley has made the FedExCup Playoffs just once in the last six years, and he doesn’t have much PGA TOUR status. He’s 41, his hair is down past his shoulders. His career so far: four TOUR wins, most recently at the 2016 Barbasol Championship, one Presidents Cup appearance. It’s easy to forget he was once tabbed as Australia’s next great player.

But maybe the best is yet to come.

One of the last men into the field at the Sony Open in Hawaii, his exemption coming on the Sunday before the tournament, Baddeley shot 65-65 on the weekend to finish TK and book a tee time at The American Express in Palm Desert, California, starting Thursday.

“Ball-hitting was pretty spot on today,” he said. “I can honestly say I think I hit one shot offline today. I haven't done that in forever. It was nice coming in because I didn't feel 100 percent comfortable starting the week. Wasn't quite right.

“It was a good little goal just to set, just to get a little bit better every day,” he added, “and it was nice to do that and nice to make a few putts just to capitalize on some good shots.”

Good shots once seemed easy. When he won the 1999 Holden Australian Open at 18, Baddeley was the first amateur champion of that event since Bruce Devlin in 1959. “Badds” fever was running high, and in 2000 he became the first amateur to receive a special exemption into the Masters since 1976. But he admits his professional career never quite lived up to the hype.

“I mean, if I was going to be honest, I'd say disappointing,” he said. “Sort of coming out if I was 18, 19, 20, if you said I'd only won four times and hadn't won a major at 41, I would have said – I would not have agreed with you.”

The problem was one of crookedness, but Baddeley, the 535th-ranked player in the world, began working with instructor Mike Adams last fall, and saw improvement. He finished T6 at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, and at the Sony had his best ball-striking in recent memory. He hit 12 of 14 fairways Sunday, on a course, Waialae Country Club, where that’s hard to do.

The improved tee-to-green play, combined with his usual short-game magic (16-of-18 scrambling), made for a potent combination.

His itinerant, unpredictable life the last three years, filled with Monday qualifiers and the odd sponsor exemption, has been hardest on his family, Baddeley said, but things are looking up.

“I can honestly say I feel like my best golf is in front of me, just with how simplified Mike has made my game,” he said, “and to be able to come into a week like this not really hitting it very well to then having one of my best ball-striking rounds ever, that's pretty cool.”