The 30-year-old Wellington left-hander has a decade in which to leave his mark on a game known to dispassionately reject those unwilling or unable to give their heart and soul to the pursuit of perfection.
And as he prepares for his second full season on the fledgling OneAsia Tour, Paddison is in the best mental space of his life, which he hopes will translate into tangible rewards on the course.
He is at peace with himself on and off the fairways after years of leading an itinerant lifestyle which made building meaningful personal relationships virtually impossible.
Having turned his back on Europe and devoted himself to the OneAsia circuit, Paddison now bases himself in his former home town of Lower Hutt, which has inadvertently helped him settle into a serious relationship for the first time in his life.
After travelling the world - taking in eastern Europe, central America and other more conventional golfing destinations - it is richly ironic that Paddison is about to settle down with Robyn Fa'atui, a woman who grew up barely 5km from Paddison's family home.
Also, he has discovered a coach who has convinced him he has the game to prosper - or at least do considerably better than spend six frustrating seasons on the second tier Challenge Tour in Europe where one win and three other top 10 placings were all he had to show from 54 tournament appearances between 2004 and 2009.
The two have been working together for a little over a year and Paddison credits Melbourne-based coach Denis McDade for opening his eyes.
"I feel as if I am now a three-dimensional golfer as distinct to a one-dimensional player," Paddison told NZPA from Melbourne an hour or so before he had a coaching session this week under the guidance of a man whose clients include PGA Tour regular Marc Leishman, European Tour player Marcus Fraser and the Japan-based Paul Sheehan.
"My previous coaching was based more heavily on technique and how to swing the club, as opposed to how to play the game. Having worked with so many professional golfers Denis realises that only a small amount of it is about how to swing the club but the majority of it is about how to play the game.
"When I practice now I look to shape shots and he's opened my mind to a lot more variety of golf shots. You start to see different shapes of shots for different holes. Instead of hitting the ball down where you think it should go, I practice shaping the ball and being able to draw it into a right pin or fade it into a right pin.
"I can start it at trouble and move it away from it, as opposed to thinking I'll go for the centre of the green."
A lot of it is about visualisation, a technique Paddison used to his advantage last weekend as he won the Queensland PGA Championship, the third time he has won as a professional since 2001 when he was named the Australasian rookie of the year.
The winnings were modest at $A17,000 ($NZ23,000) but that mattered little because nothing in golf is more important than confidence, which just so happens to be a trait borne of winning.
He now has much bigger assignments in his sights, starting with the Indonesian PGA Championship on March 24-27, the first event on the 12-tournament OneAsia circuit which also takes in the tri-sanctioned China Open on April 21-24 when the purse will approach close to $US3 million ($NZ4 million).
Paddison earned an invite to the big money event for finishing 24th on OneAsia's order of merit last season, which he wants to better in 2011.
He has no regrets about turning his back on Europe.
"OneAsia fitted in with what I wanted. On the Challenge Tour I was playing so much I did not have the time to practice and make improvements technically.
"I got a bit sick of Europe and it didn't help that I didn't play that great over there.
"But it was more about being away from home so much. You do miss seeing the folks and sister growing older. Each year mum and dad were getting a bit more grey.
"In fact I'm actually sporting a few grey hairs myself now."
