Professional Career
When he was in his late teens, Baddeley was seen as one of the most promising talents in world golf. He was the youngest player ever to represent Australia in the Eisenhower Trophy and he won the Holden Australian Open as an amateur in 1999 and retained his title in 2000, by which time he had turned professional. In 2001, he won the Greg Norman Holden International in Australia. He won the PGA Tour of Australasia's Order of Merit in 2000/01. However of the following few years he came to be overshadowed by his Australian contemporary Adam Scott, who is less than a year older than Baddeley but reached the world top 10 in 2005.
In 2002, Baddeley played on the second tier Nationwide Tour in the U.S. and placed tenth on the money list to earn a PGA Tour card for 2003. He had second place finishes on the PGA Tour in 2003 at the Sony Open in Hawaii and 2004 at the Chrysler Classic of Tucson. However he struggled for consistency, and after a solid rookie season, when he finished 73rd on the money list, he only just retained his card in 2004, when he came 124th. In 2005 he moved back up the rankings to 78th and in 2006 he won his first PGA Tour title at the Verizon Heritage.
Baddeley won his second PGA Tour tournament in early 2007 and reached the top 50 of the world rankings. By September, he had entered the top 20.
Baddeley was the leader after the third round of the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club on 16 June 2007 with a two over par score of 212 (72-70-70). He finished with an 80 and ended T-13.
After a lull in form over the following few seasons, where he was finishing only in the lower reaches of the top-125 on the money list, Baddeley returned to the winner's circle when he won the 2011 Northern Trust Open in California. He defended a one-shot third round lead over Kevin Na and veteran Fred Couples, completing a steady closing round of 69 to beat another veteran, Vijay Singh, by two strokes.
In October 2011, Baddeley was selected by Greg Norman as one of his two wildcard picks for the 2011 Presidents Cup team. He was selected along with fellow Australian Robert Allenby to compete at Royal Melbourne in November.
Statistically speaking, Baddeley frequently ranks as one of the very best putters on the PGA Tour. As of 2010, he has qualified for the Tour's end-of-season statistical rankings 8 times; of those, he finished among the circuit's top 10 in putts per green in regulation five times, and among the top 15 seven times. The only qualified season in which Baddeley was not among the PGA Tour's top 15 putters by that metric came in 2004, when he finished 64th out of 196 players.
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