New Zealand born, Rugby bred, living the Golf Life: One Hole with Ryan Fox

was a rugby guy when you were growing up what did you think of those NFL guys with their helmets on
we just used to laugh to be fair i’m Ryan Fox come play a hole with me i got to ask you about your golf swing it’s one of the most unique that we have late starter
yep
tell me about the evolution of your swing and did anyone ever try to keep you away from what you’re doing now
not really when I picked up golf as a kid my generation there how I play golf by the Tiger Woods book i read that as like a teenager probably didn’t have my first lesson until I was like 16 and that probably messed me up a little bit
could you get it around though like
I played off two when I was like 16
so before you ever got a golf lesson you were like a two well I had some pretty good hand eye coordination in my jeans to be fair i started a law degree at Oakland University gave up rugby and cricket and decided I’d play some tournament golf see if I like that got a coach got down to scratch like first tournament I played I was like I love this
i was going to say did you realize right away you were like “Oh this is it
this is it this beats this beats law school.”
So you had an interesting career path where you were playing on the European tour DP World Tour so did you envision like a life in America before that not really the dream was always to play on the PJ tour but at 35 36 I was like “Oh you know I’m pretty happy in Europe i’ve got a good career i’ve won a few a couple of events over there and was doing pretty well.” And then all of a sudden at you know 35 play my way into the masters and top 50 and all of that and started playing out here and
what’s the biggest difference
i think the depth of competition compared to Europe’s stronger over here you have to play well to make a cut overhead
as a rugby guy when you were growing up what’ you think of those NFL guys with their helmets on we just used to laugh to be fair it’s a very different game like rugby for the most part everything’s in front of you you don’t get blindsided
you don’t get blindsided very often not really running backwards in rugby you’re not worried about someone coming up from behind you and hitting you i understand why you play with pads in football just a nice gappy
that was pretty much the middle of the field shot
thank you
football there’s like a three-point stance is there like an equivalent of that for rugby
there’s a scrum
how would you get ready for a scrum scrum’s got eight people in it so there’s three guys in the front the guy in the middle has has his arms over the other two okay
two guys behind them actually put their hands between their legs and grab the jersey here
okay
two guys on the side and then one guy right at the back i mean the packs are like combined like 900 kilos each what’s that 2,000 lb
were you in that
no I used to play in the the back line i used to play the same position as my dad cuz I didn’t have a choice really
yeah yeah
that’s what I wanted to do
your dad like super well known in New Zealand
yeah it was normal growing up like dad was dad like I knew he was good at rugby but he he coached every rugby team I had growing up which was cool
some lucky kids
yeah he caddy for me heaps as an amateur on trips overseas trips around New Zealand so dad was really involved in everything I did which was really cool oh that is a really good putt not your best effort
no no i wasn’t really thinking that much about it to be