Usually private clubs don't have open tee times on Sunday afternoons, but on Father's Day at Oakmont, Aaron Baddeley and Tiger Woods had secured the last spot of the day, the coveted 3 p.m. slot, to play for the national championship. Going into Round 4, Badds had the lead.
Tiger, trailing by two, had the honor. He was a sight: jet-black pants (no pleats) and a red, skin-tight mock turtleneck with a spider-web pattern on it. Spidey, with a titanium driver. "He steps up the tee and it's like, 'Whoa,'" said Baddeley's veteran caddie, Pete Bender. Tiger smashed one down the middle.
Then came Badds, an Aussie looking to win his first major (although he did win the Australian Open at age 18 in 1999). He stared down the fairway for a long moment with his eyes closed. Visualize, visualize! In his hands was a dinky little fairway wood, but he was comfortable with it. He wasn't going to get into a match-play situation with Tiger. The main thing on number 1 — a downhill par-4, 482 yards — is to hit the fairway. That, and to two-putt.
The kid looked calm and he looked good, in his circa 1975 getup (white shoes, thick white belt, white hat, brown Munsingwear shirt, plaid pants). He hitched up his left sleeve, the way Tiger used to do before he went to the stretch fabrics.
Baddeley had his game plan and the swing with which to implement it, something teaching pros used to get paid to fix when it was called a reverse pivot. Now they get paid to teach it under a new name, "stack and tilt," in which the weight stays on the forward foot all through the swing. Baddeley's swing coach, Andy Plummer, has a big spread on it in the June Golf Digest. Johnny Miller's been talking about it on TV. It's all the rage.
Through three rounds, Baddeley's stack-and-tilt action — along with his silky putting stroke — had produced rounds of 72, 70 and 70. That sounds like dead last at the Hope, but Oakmont was tougher than Winged Foot, tougher than Shinnecock Hills, tougher even than Bethpage Black. It was fang city.
Baddeley swung. His play-it-safe tee shot stayed in the sticky right rough, his next three shots were nothing to e-mail home about, and three putts later he had a leadoff triple. Woods made a textbook U.S. Open 4 to start. "If you're going to make a triple, the 1st hole is the place to do it," Bender told his man.
And Baddeley, to his credit, didn't seem at all freaked out. He followed the messy 1st with realistic (for him) birdie putts on 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. But he couldn't get a handle on the speed of the greens, which he said changed from one hole to the next, and nothing went in. Then came a double-bogey on 7, and his front-nine score, 41, looked like a giant typo on the press-tent leader board.
