Baddeley, a four-time PGA Tour winner but without a victory since 2016, will start the final round at Port Royal Golf Course at 16-under, just two shots back of the lead shared by Seamus Power and Ben Griffin. Playing this season on past champion status, the Aussie wasn’t in the field this week, so he decided to try his hand at Monday qualifying.

The 41-year-old shot five-under 66 in the qualifier held in Orlando on October 17 before advancing in a 6-for-2 playoff to earn a tee time this week in Southampton, Bermuda. Funnily enough, Baddeley also advanced out of a 6-for-2 playoff to Monday qualify for the Fortinet Championship last month, where he finished T-36th.

Baddeley, whose last tour win came at the 2016 Barbasol Championship, has struggled in recent years, with his last top-10 on the tour coming in 2019. For the veteran with more than $22 million in tour earnings, though, being in contention in Bermuda brings with it a certain comfort.

“It feels like it’s the right spot to be, to be honest,” said Baddeley after shooting a third-round 68. “I feel like my game’s been in the spot to be in this position for a while, and it’s just nice to be here, be back having a chance to win.”

A Baddeley win on Sunday would be consistent with a theme that is emerging at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in its short four-year history. Starting with Brendon Todd’s win in 2019, Port Royal has proven to be a putter’s paradise.

Both Todd and 2020 champion Brian Gay finished inside the top four in putts per round en route to their wins, and though last year’s champion Lucas Herbert finished T-6 in the stat, he led the PGA Tour in strokes gained/putting for the 2021-22 season.

Like Todd, Gay and Herbert, Baddeley has long been regarded as one of the best putters on tour. The Aussie led in strokes gained/putting in 2015 and has rarely strayed from the top 10 in the stat throughout his 20-year career.

Though his numbers have slipped over the past few years, Baddeley said earlier in the week that he’d “got the putting figured out again now,” which has been confirmed so far this week, as he sits T-2 in putts per round.

Should the putter stay hot and he come back to win, Baddeley would be the first Monday qualifier to win on the PGA Tour since Corey Conners did it at the 2019 Valero Texas Open.

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The post Aaron Baddeley, contending in Bermuda, looks to be just the sixth player since 1980 to pull off this feat appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Tod Leonard
These days, it usually takes going exceptionally low to win on the PGA Tour, and it’s apparently no different in qualifying for the US Open.

In the first final qualifier played in North America on Monday at two courses in Dallas, 11-under for 36 holes was the number to be the medallist — and there were four players who achieved that — while seven-under was the score that got players into next month’s major at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts.

In a qualifier that featured numerous PGA Tour pros, the top 13 out of 98 entrants advanced, and a six-man playoff was required for the final two spots. Those positions went to Davis Shore and Roger Sloan, while Adam Hadwin and Austin Cook were the first and second alternates, respectively.

The day’s low score was a 62 fashioned by Matthew NeSmith, who made nine birdies in the morning round at Royal Oaks Country Club. NeSmith, a third-year PGA Tour player who has competed in only one major, shot 69 in the second round at Lakewood Country Club and joined Americans Kurt Kitayama (65-66) and Sean Crocker (64-67), and Japan’s Jinichiro Kozuma (68-63) at 11-under.

Among the notables not advancing were 2010 US Open champion Graeme McDowell, Matt Kuchar, Aaron Baddeley, Rory Sabbatini and James Hahn.

The other more recognisable names to advance were Canadians Mackenzie Hughes (nine-under) and Nick Taylor (nine-under) and American Scott Stallings, who was solo 11th at eight-under.

There was one amateur who reached from this final: University of Texas junior Travis Vick, who shot nine-under. Vick was a semi-finalist at last year’s US Amateur at Oakmont.

The remaining nine final qualifiers — eight in the US and one in Canada — will be contested on Monday, June 6.

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The post US Open 2022: These scores were ridiculously low, even in a US Open qualifier appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.