Baddeley is putting the pieces together at The Greenbrier

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Aaron Baddeley shot a 5-under 65 at the Greenbrier Classic on Friday and sits inside the top 10.

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. -- Sometimes you can stare at a hole in a jigsaw puzzle for days on end before finally finding the piece that fits.

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Golf swings can be similar. From the grip and stance to your rhythm, tempo and balance, all must work in concert to produce big drives and pin-point approach shots. When one gets out of kilter, the other pieces can suffer, too.

Aaron Baddeley has been there, done that. He's worked for a little more than a year to put the puzzle back together after ditching the Stack and Tilt method for the more traditional swing he learned as a kid.

Toward that end, the 29-year-old Australian went back to his first instructor, Dale Lynch, who has migrated from Melbourne and opened a teaching facility near Greenville, S.C. On Monday, the two put their heads together -- and the work appears to have paid off.

Baddeley fired a 65 on Friday that lifted him to the upper echelon of the leaderboard at 8 under. He'll have some ground to make up on the leader, Jeff Overton, of course, but the Aussie is encouraged by the work he did with Lynch.

"We found what we thought was like a big piece that was sort of missing,'" Baddeley said, before stopping and correcting himself. "I mean, a small piece, but in the scheme of things it was pretty big.

"I thought if I could play well, I definitely had a chance to win, because I thought my putting and short game was coming around. I hit a lot of good shots last week but just wasn't quite there."

Baddeley said the problem was in his grip and his set-up, which had gotten a bit off balance. "(I) always play my best when the club face is a little bit closed, and I was getting a little bit too open,'" he explained.

After Friday's bogey-free round of 5 under, though, Baddeley said he felt like he was getting "pretty close" to where he wanted to be. He hit 8 of 14 fairways and all but three greens, while using 28 putts.

"It was like one better tee shot in the fairway, one up and down and one putt a day, it's just that small,'" Baddeley said. "I feel like my game has been that close.

"I guess I felt like it's been more of a battle of just trusting my new swing, or, your old swing -- just going back to what I used to do. ... That's sort of what I've been thinking about this week -- just be courageous enough to trust it and let it go."

Baddeley teed off on a fog-delayed Friday morning in the second group off No. 10 and promptly set the tone for the day when he hit a pitching wedge to 4 inches. He added another birdie at the par-5 17th, getting up and down from a greenside bunker.

The rest of the round was relatively quiet until the sixth hole where Baddeley hit an 8-iron to 15 feet and began a stretch of three straight birdies. A lob wedge at No. 7 produced a 10-footer and Baddeley closed out his round with a 5-iron to 5 feet at the eighth hole.

"It was a solid day pretty much,'" Baddeley said. "(I) made two nice saves on 3 and 4. Besides that, it was really just a nice stretch really. Hit lots of fairways, lots of greens, and it was pretty comfortable. It was a comfortable day, really. "

A two-time PGA TOUR champion, Baddeley became a father for the second time -- and to a second daughter -- in May. A born-again Christian, the young Aussie says he often quotes passages of scripture a lot, even on the golf course.

"One of my favorites is 2 Timothy 1:8," Baddeley said. "It says, 'For God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and a sound mind.' Whenever I get a little bit nervous I always quote that. ... It helps calm me down just knowing I'm out there and the Lord's with me."

On Friday, though, there were few of those anxious moments.

"(I) guess (I am) sort of starting to see a little bit of the fruit of the labor," Baddeley said.