"Smiling is what I do now," says the year 11 pupil of a relaxation technique in a code where the mantra is that golfers seldom smile. "I try to."
The Hastings Golf Club member, who tied for seventh place during the under-17 nationals staged at his home club last month, had a tendency to play a bad shot and then belligerently carry it through to the flag-marked hole on the prime real estate.
"I've implemented breathing into my game."
He and Galbraith have come up with a list of attributes that define who he is on the course - they include words such as courageous, kind, hard-working, intelligent.
Bagley isn't going to focus on the persistent rain that has taken hold of the Bay in the past few days. Instead he'll turn his thoughts to what he can do best on the course.
The mental gymnastics takes precedence over his short-game prowess.
"I'd say that my strongest point of golf is my mental game and then it's my short game."
Bagley isn't too pleased with his performance during the nationals at Bridge Pa, where Napier teenager Mako Thompson broke a provincial hoodoo of winning the national under-19 crown as the first Bay amateur to achieve the feat in recent memory in a field of about 150.
"I wasn't hitting the ball as well as I'd like at the nationals but I'm better at it now," he says. He attributes that to Hastings PGA professional Brian Doyle, his swing coach for the past three years, who helped him adjust his feet alignment.
"I was hitting up open to the ball but now I've squared my shoulders to the stance," Bagley says, adding that Doyle is "amazing".
Bagley appreciates the opportunities the Eagle Society of Hawke's Bay, as well as the parent body, provides with its monthly interclub competitions, where members also turn up to help.
He has had a taste of playing golf abroad as well and come out wiser.
In August last year the teenager competed at the South Pacific Junior Open Championship in Noumea, New Caledonia, where he finished runner-up in a field of more than 50.
"It was like very, very humid, like in a swamp area, so I was quite unprepared and underestimated how hot it was going to be."
Bagley thanks his stars for coming through despite succumbing to dehydration.
His parents, Fay and Rick Bagley, who own and manage the Anchor milk franchise in the province, have been his No 1 supporters and financial backers.
Bagley started playing when he was 6 because his mother, a 12 handicapper, encouraged him to give it a go.
But soon after giving it a go he put golf on the backburner because she had left for Christchurch for work in 2010, but picked it up when she returned in late 2012.
Starting with a 31 handicap he was down to 14 within a year. It wasn't until he was about 13 years old that Bagley entered competitions and entertained thoughts of carving a career out of the game.
"I want to go to college [university] in America after finishing high school here to try to get on the PGA Tour."
Adept academically, he also has ambitions to carve a niche in mathematics and sciences.
Fourteen societies from New Zealand will be represented in the 36-hole tourney, which starts in a shotgun tee-off at 8am today and finishes tomorrow.
Players of the ilk of LPGA/PGA professionals Lydia Ko and Danny Lee as well as Daniel Hillier, Daniel Pearce (for Aorangi but ex-Bay amateur who still lives in Hastings) and Amelia Garvey are former Eagles tourney champions.
Bay's Cosmo Graham is the other male amateur in the field of 55, which includes seven females but none from here.
The only other time the Bay hosted the tourney was in 1996, at the same venue as this year, after the inaugural one in Wellington in 1981.
Other Bay invited players this year are Luke Wedd, Sebastian Kettle, Tuhourangi Wilson, Callum van den Berk, Zackary Swanwick, Trent Lee and Guy Harrison.
