Sidelines
Young Baddeley needs
1 more big dayAARON Baddeley. A kid! A young punk, all of 21. He's got sizzle. Sex appeal. Tight pants. He has that 40-something (50-something?) lady hanging over the ropes and yelling, "You're a good-looking man!"
(Actually, she said the same thing to his playing partner, Retief Goosen. She may have said it to everybody.)
No matter. Golf needs stuff like this. Golf, the sport where the first thing that hits you when you watch it live is that everyone is telling you to shut up. No yelling, no running, no moving, definitely no screaming. What kind of sport is this?
They even have signs for this, official "QUIET PLEASE" signs with the tournament logo that volunteers hold up.
I would like one of these signs. This is the souvenir for me. I would use it whenever appropriate, at the office, around the house. Just hold it up.
But back to this kid. Baddeley. He could stir it up a little. He was red-hot, yesterday, at the Sony Open in Hawaii. There was no stopping him. He tore up the front nine, and then, in all kinds of adventures on the back, he emerged unscathed with NINE PARS.
And the lead was his.
"He's 21," one man in the gallery said, awed.
"Is he?" asked a friend.
"He's young, isn't he?"
"He's killing today."
Today, as in yesterday. The real today, today, Sunday, the last day, he faces Ernie Els, the man Baddeley calls the "second-best player in the world." Baddeley is the newest thing, the next big thing, the Tiger Woods of Australia. But Els is Els and Els is on fire and only two strokes back.
"It's a little different tomorrow (today)," Els said. "This is the big leagues."
It is, but there's a but ...
"But he's a big-league player."
That's what people have said since the kid won the Australian Open as an 18-year-old amateur and then defended the title a year later. So today doesn't shake him, not after winning his country's biggest tournament. It compares, but barely, even if the money is better. Baddeley's best prize to date was $360,000 in "Aussies."
"So it's 10 dolahs," he said, to big laughs.
Els said it's always hard to sleep with a lead, but Baddeley, the young lion, insists he'll snooze away. He'll come out swinging, going for it, aggressively. Of course. He's young. That's what the young do.
"He's definitely not scared," Els said.
No. But this isn't your typical young punk. Sure, he planned to talk on the phone last night, and peruse his e-mails. But he reads, too. Deep stuff. He was up at 6, yesterday morning, buried in a book. Then he went out and hit every shot. This is a guy who decided at age 13 to be on the PGA Tour at 21, and here he is.
Els knows what he's up against. Els, the pro, is focused. He's going to the range ready to play, and ready to pull it all out of the bag. Baddeley is young, but he's one of the great talents, and today could be the day.
"Tiger Woods, you know," Els said, "he was 20, 21, when he started beating the hell out of us."
Damn kids.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com