Column: Baddeley's goal is a Tiger tale

They were both prodigies once, big hitters with touch, creativity to burn and nerves of steel. That must seem like forever ago to Aaron Baddeley.

He idolized Tiger Woods as a teenager, began tracing his footsteps by winning the Australian Open as an 18-year-old and talked openly about toppling the best player in the world not long after that.

Since then, Woods has won a dozen majors, one more than Baddeley has played in. Long after plenty of smart people in golf expected to see it happen, the Aussie has a chance to rework the math when the two go off in the final pairing at the U.S. Open on Sunday.

"I've always spoke whatever was in my heart, you know," Baddeley said after an up-and-down Saturday at Oakmont ended with an even-par 70 and a 2-shot cushion over Woods. "I've always told you guys what my dreams were, my goals. I wasn't shy to do that.

"So when someone says something like that," he added, "you're always going to get criticized. But that doesn't bother me a whole lot, to be honest."

Baddeley is nothing if not honest, a searcher who stared down Greg Norman, Colin Montgomerie and Sergio Garcia in his first two seasons of serious golf, yet nearly quit the game a half-dozen years ago. Then he willingly detoured through the minor leagues on this side of the Atlantic rather than play the European Tour because his goal was always to test himself against the best. He's retooled his swing and changed coaches three times since, but Baddeley was always certain about one thing.

"He wanted to be the best player in the world," said coach Andy Plummer, who along with Mike Bennett became Baddeley's braintrust late in 2005. "Not everybody has the guts to say it _ especially somebody who was ridiculed for saying it before."

Plummer understands the gulf between desire and accomplishment, a divide that Baddeley seemed to straddle all day. Plummer watched as his pupil stumbled to three bogeys and just one birdie on the front, going out in 37, and then made three birdies in the first four holes on the back to seemingly take command of the tournament. The operative word was seemingly.

For years, Baddeley covered up for his poor driving by putting like a wizard, and this week he melded a hot putter with adequate ballstriking skills to stay close to the top of the leaderboard. But at No. 15, he sprayed his drive into the left rough and couldn't save par with the putter. Then he lost his tee shot at the par-3 16th in the bunker and couldn't get up and down.

What everyone else judged to be a case of nerves, Plummer viewed as a blessing.

"I actually thought that stretch was good, because there's going to be plenty of times Sunday when the storm comes, and Aaron got a chance to see how he reacts to adversity. He had to dig himself out of that hole and now," Plummer said, "at least he knows he can do that."

Gouging himself out was more accurate, since Baddeley teed off with an iron at No. 17 to spare himself any more pain. But with his nerves jangling, he pulled the tee shot hard left. The ball ran through the fairway headed for a bunker but added a diabolical twist of its own, coming to rest on the thick grass wall.

As Baddeley settled into his stance in the sand, there was 91 yards left to the pin. But more than just the shot in front of him was weighing on his mind. He tells you he's learned from the adversity piled on his career after a promising start. Blow this tournament in this place, and Baddeley knew all that talk would seem to the rest of the golfing world like so much wasted breath.

He slashed the ball out of the rough and counted on the slope of the hole to carry it somewhere to the left side of the green.

"That was key," he said, "because if I made bogey there ... I would have been 4-over at the time.

"That was key," Baddeley repeated as though convincing himself. "That really felt like a birdie, to be honest."

Baddeley extended the celebration by following that up with perhaps his steadiest birdie of the tournament. He split the fairway at 18 with his driver and deposited an 8-iron 15 feet left of the pin, where the ball funnels toward the hole.

He removed any suspense by rolling that one in, setting a tone that he hoped would carry over to Sunday's meeting with Woods. The two have played together a handful of times, most recently the first two days of this year's Masters, but their history is a little more complicated than that.

In 2000, the U.S. Golf Association granted Baddeley an exemption into the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, in part because he invited comparison to a younger Tiger. Woods won the Open that year by 15 strokes. Baddeley missed the cut, and his best finish in a major since has been a tie for 57th.

"Obviously I'm going to deal with some emotions because I've never been in this position before. But I've worked my whole life to be in this position," Baddeley said, "so I'm going to embrace it."

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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at [e-mail]