A new swing produces a new result

Aaron Baddeley shaved two strokes off his score from Thursday with a second-round 70 despite what many players thought were much tougher conditions.

“Since I’ve really started working with Andy [Plummer] and Mike [Bennett], my ball striking has improved,” Baddeley said.__ “My driving accuracy has improved a lot, which makes it easier to play the game. . . . My driving is actually one of my strengths now, where it was never like that.”__

Playing well in a U.S. Open requires extreme accuracy, and it has taken some getting used to for Baddeley, who had never made the cut in this championship. “In Australia, you just blast away, and if you hit in the fairway, great, and if you hit it in the rough, it’s no problem,” he said. “But it’s not like that here at all.”

Click here to read Peter Morrice’s article on Plummer and Bennett from Golf Digest’s June 2007 issue.

— Jeff Patterson