Ryan Fox joins the Life on Tour podcast this week after his impressive wire-to-wire victory at the 2022 Ras al Khaimah Classic.
Speaking to Ewan Porter from his quarantine hotel in New Zealand, Fox gives us an in-depth insight into his life and career ahead of being reunited with his wife and daughter – who just started walking for the first time while he was away.
Throughout the podcast, Fox recounts his own interesting route into professional golf, his memorable experiences at The Open, a unique relationship with Tiger Woods’ former caddie, and how his most recent victory came after flying out his physio from Europe to Ras al Khaimah to work on his back.
Here’s some of the things we learned from this week’s podcast, and you can click here to listen to the full episode.
LISTEN HERE
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/life-on-tour-golf-podcast/id1391845851?i=1000552543849
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4jkg7wIAmKMvv6WBAn4FHz
WHAT WE LEARNED
There was no pressure from his family of professional sportsmen
Ryan Fox is the third generation in his family to be a professional sportsman. His father Grant represented the All Blacks rugby team, while his Grandfather Merv Wallace was a test captain of the New Zealand cricket team. Despite this, Fox never felt any pressure from them to live up to those standards and reach the top of the sport he chose.
Fox said, “Both my grandad and my dad were very supportive of whatever I did, but obviously with that background I was always going to grow up with sport in my life. My earliest memories are facing my grandad bowling to me in the backyard.
“Rugby and Cricket were what I naturally gravitated to, but there was always a golf club there. I think my grandad may have even built my first set of clubs from a couple of pieces of bamboo and a couple of blocks of wood. There was always sport there, but no real pressure to succeed. Maybe pressure from other people, there was always going to be a direct comparison to the old man but I was never going to live up to that standard. People expected me to be a little better than I was, but there was never any pressure from home.”
Before he ever thought about playing professionally, he was doing a law degree
With a focus on rugby and cricket growing up, Fox had barely thought about playing tournament golf as a junior, let alone becoming a professional golfer.
In fact, it wasn't until he realised he missed competitive sport while at University studying for a Law degree that he decided it was an option and he went to his first coach. Two years later he opted to do a different University course altogether, while focusing on making golf a career.
“I think I played one or two tournaments as a junior, and they were all around my home course. I had no interest in playing tournament golf. Then after I finished school I quit rugby. I started a law degree and was doing the typically student thing, probably drinking too much and eating a bit too many kebabs but I had two months without competitive sport and I really missed that and thought I’ll give tournament golf a go.
“I went and saw a coach for the first time when I was 18, got down to scratch pretty quickly, and my old man caddied for me the first tournament I played. It was the middle of winter, there was frost on the greens, it was freezing cold, and we played 72 holes on a weekend starting in the dark and finishing in the dark. I absolutely loved it, and that was me from there I wanted to play as much as possible. After a couple of years of doing that I started doing part-time Uni, and thought golf might be a career path. Pretty glad I got there in the end! I dropped out of law pretty quick, plus golf was a bit too much fun at that point… and I finished Uni in 2009 with an arts degree in psychology."
On his route to Challenge Tour status – he almost didn’t compete in the event where he got his first win in Europe
Ryan Fox had a brilliant spell in 2015, which started when his management company helped him get an invite to play on the Challenge Tour in France. He recorded back-to-back top 10s, and soon after made it through Open qualifying to earn his first start in a Major.
But after making his Open debut, Fox was ready to fly home despite a last-minute invite to another event in France. His management persuaded him, and he wound up winning his first Challenge Tour title by a stroke and earn himself status on the Challenge Tour.
“I’d packed to go either home or to Europe for a few months and got the call on the Saturday saying we’ve got you a Challenge Tour start. So I flew in - never been to Europe before - landed in London and caught the train to Calais and ended up in Saint Omer. I finished top 10 that week to get into Scotland the following week, where I finished 10th on the button in Scotland to get into Germany.
“One of the premises of me going over was to go to Open qualifying and I qualified for the Open in 2015 as well. I played that and was ready to go home and they said we’ve got you another start in France and I actually put my foot down and said no I don’t want to play I want to go home.
“They said just play, and I think I had the laziest week of my life after coming off The Open. Played a practice round on Wednesday and didn’t hit a single practice ball other than warming up for the week and ended up winning the event so maybe that’s the secret going forward. That’s how I got Challenge Tour status.”
An insight into his relationship with Tiger Woods’ former caddie Steve Williams.
Ryan Fox and Steve Williams have a connection that goes beyond both hailing from New Zealand. Having connected at an event almost a decade ago, the pair have since worked together a couple of times (and won once!)– although Fox admits even he couldn’t resist asking Steve questions about working with Tiger at first.
“It all happened pretty organically really.” Fox says.
“Steve knew Marcus my coach really well. Steve just offered one day to come out and take a look whilst I was playing an event in New Zealand in maybe 2013 or 2014. We walked around, had a chat with him and then sort of caught up with him at various events around the world when he was still caddying and got to know him really well. And then out of the blue in 2015 or 2016 I got a call from him saying if you don’t have a caddie for the New Zealand open I’d love to caddie for you – and you can’t ever say no to that. You know, arguably the best record of any caddie the world’s ever had and it was pretty cool to walk around with him doing that and I’ve become good friends with Steve and he’s caddied for me a few times since.
“I think I spent the first two tournaments he caddied for me purely quizzing him about Tiger, which he was really open about, answering lots of questions and telling lots of cool stories and I’ve had a bit of fun relaying those to my mates over the years.”
The Open: Memorable experiences and setting records
Fox’s first start at The Open Championship was one to remember for a whole host of reasons. Not only was it at St. Andrews in 2015, but after long weather delays he ended up making the cut by finishing four under through his last five holes of the second round. A Monday finish added to the eventful week, which was topped off by being paired with Bernard Langer for Ivor Robson’s final ever starting call at an Open Championship.
“I managed to coming down the stretch I was one over for the day outside the cut-line, I think I eagled 14, hit it to an inch and almost made albatross there, birdied 16 and birdied 18 to make the cut and got off the golf course at 10.30pm for the second night in a row.
“On the Sunday I was absolutely ruined and we had a Monday finish and I got to play with Bernhard Langer. We were the first group out on the Monday which happened to be Ivor Robson’s last ever call starting of an Open, and I shot 67 in the last round playing with Bernard in the last round. We got around really quick before the wind came and think I ended up sneaking in the top 50 which was nice, so was a really cool week all round.”
Then during his appearance in 2019 at Royal Portrush, Fox broke an Open Championship record. Having missed seven cuts in a row Fox arrived in Northern Ireland without much confidence, but during Thursday’s round he improved his front-nine score of 39 by 10 strokes during a back-nine tear which saw him become the only ever player to record a back-nine of 29 in Open history.
“My confidence was way down. I shot three over on the front nine, thinking it’s just another one of those weeks. Then out of the blue I holed an eight-footer for birdie on 12, and then went unconscious for a while and got six birdies in the final seven holes. Then all of a sudden I get whipped off the golf course to do some interview as you’ve broken an Open record, when I was just happy I was under par!”
