So Badds He's Good

As saturday night was turning into Easter Sunday, the party was in full swing at the Harbour Town lighthouse, the red-and-white-striped landmark that CBS uses annually to remind you of where you are, or could be. During the previous week, at Augusta, CBS used the Butler Cabin in a different way: We're in here, you're not, and you're never getting in. � The Masters in early April followed the next week by Hilton Head has been a scheduling fixture on the PGA Tour since 1983, and it's never going to change. It's too perfect. In 1985 Bernhard Langer won both events, but since 2000, when Vijay Singh won at Augusta, no Masters winner has even played the following week. Winning at Augusta drains your tank. Others are looking for a working holiday. � "The word I always heard for Hilton Head was decompress," Jim Furyk said on Sunday night, still looking for some tournament in the South to give him a sport coat. Last year he finished in a tie for second, two shots back, at the Verizon Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links, and he was solo second this year, a stroke behind Aaron Baddeley. (At 25 Baddeley is catching up in Tour wins with the other young Australian golfer with whom he's been linked most of his life. Now it's Adam Scott 3, Baddeley 1.) If you played Augusta, as Furyk did this year, you come to Hilton Head to decompress. If you watched the Masters on TV, as Baddeley did this year, you come to Hilton Head psyched to play.

Last week--playing the par-71 Pete Dye gem that is less than 7,000 yards long and has hardly changed since it opened in 1969-- Baddeley took a giant leap toward getting himself invited back to Augusta in 2007. You don't shoot 66, 67, 66 and 70 (15 under par), playing the final 36 holes with the steely Furyk, on a firm, windswept course, unless you can golf your ball. "I didn't expect him to go out and shoot 80," Furyk said. He saw too much skill and composure in the Saturday round to imagine that.

On Sunday, Furyk could have had the shot of the day. On the lovely, dead-flat seaside home hole, Furyk hit a downwind pitching wedge to a crunchy green with the hole cut 15 feet from the front edge. With the ball in the air Furyk made an uncharacteristic grunt, the equivalent of Hal Sutton's "Be the right club today" at the 2000 Players Championship. With the exception of Tiger Woods and maybe Chris DiMarco, there's no American golfer who seems to need the competition provided by tournament golf as much as Furyk. But the luster and import of his wedge shot were lost when he misread the ensuing 12-footer for birdie, blowing his chance for a playoff and a possible win.

That left Baddeley--the final syllable is pronounced lay--with a par putt from seven feet for the victory. It slithered in the right side of the hole, whereupon Richelle Baddeley, the winner's American wife, her blonde hair spilling out from underneath her Fidel Castro--style hat, did a couple of peppy greenside verticals that brought to mind Amy Mickelson prekids, started to sprint toward the champ, realized that Gentleman Jim still had to finish and very cutely retreated with a step-for-step reverse run. But no matter what she did, it wasn't going to turn into Brookline 1999. This was Hilton Head, in any year. Par-tay!

Did you see all those boats in the Calibogue Sound, moored within wading distance of the 18th green? In gorgeous weather the boat people were lounging on their sun-drenched decks, blowing their foghorns to celebrate Baddeley's win and their own affluence. It's great to be a "have" in America. Part of the appeal of Hilton Head is that you can buy the good life there and you don't have to be a zillionaire to do it. At 59 1/2 you can cash out the 401k and get a time-share condo on a little lane with a maritime name. At Augusta, even zillions don't guarantee you a sniff of Butler Cabin.

But last week was also a reminder of how TV can turn real lives into fiction. Not long after Baddeley turned pro in 2000, he was Badds, the star of a MacGregor spot that had him in fashion-forward snugwear, with long (by Tour standards) blond hair and driving a convertible with three babes in the backseat screeching his nickname. Stud, right?

That's how he dressed (still does), and that's how he wore his hair (now his head is scalped), but that wasn't the true him, then or now. He was the picture of calm on the golf course last week, even when he was missing greens, even when Furyk had him by a shot standing on the 14th tee. Before holing his seven-footer to win $954,000, the name behind badds.com said to himself, "This is for you, Jesus." In the laid-back Hilton Head interview room--about one tenth the size of the one at Augusta National--Baddeley discussed his golf and his life with an almost detached serenity. He said he has "walked with Christ" all his professional life. The guy in the convertible never seemed like him to him.

Last Saturday was Aaron and Richelle's first anniversary. He was in the last group of the day, and he finished late. He and Richelle had a celebratory dinner, then retired to their hotel room, with a window facing the lighthouse, the low hum of the Saturday-night revelers reaching the young couple. There was a band covering the enduring Pink Floyd anthem Wish You Were Here, the postcard sign-off especially appropriate in that setting, and Baddeley was making notes for his testimony at a 7:30 a.m. Easter Sunday service to be held on the 18th green. He finished, set his alarm clock for 6 a.m. and went to bed. "He wanted to be prepared," Richelle said, "but when he gave his talk, it was from the heart." There was nobody shrieking, "Badds!"

The smell around the lighthouse on Saturday night was of fried grouper and spilled beer and burning cigarettes, and for many the fun continued on Sunday. At Augusta you endure a cavity search before they let you through the gate, your cellphone is treated as if it's radioactive, and you can't even tell what brand of beer you're drinking. At Hilton Head, where scads of people were wearing souvenir 2006 Masters shirts, people slipped off boats and onto the course without a ticket, chatted away on cellphones to faraway homeys and drank Bud in cans kept cool by brightly colored thermal holders issued by Verizon.

Christopher Masterson, a "105 shooter" visiting Hilton Head from Chicago for a bachelor party, strolled around the 18th green on Sunday in sandals, patchwork Madras shorts and a pink short-sleeved button-down shirt. Atop his head were furry pink bunny ears. "With the tail I'm getting, I'll be wearing these ears every year here," he said.