Ryan Fox is still in a good shape after his first victory in the PGA TOUR

The kiwi reflects how the win of the last week has helped to shoot 67 in the first round of the PGA Championship

Ryan Fox is with us now at the 107th PGA Championship. Ryan, a nice 67 for you today in the opening round. How would you sum up your performance? Uh, played really solid today. Um, you know, it hasn’t been the ideal prep coming in for me. Um, obviously winning last week, being last man in, um, you know, literally played 18 holes yesterday and that was the only only thing I did preparation wise. Basically hit a few balls on Tuesday and played one hole before the storm came in. So, um, you know, obviously knew I was playing well and just tried to get out of my own way and just let it happen today and, um, you was really happy with how I did that and, you know, kept the momentum going from last week pretty nicely. That’s great. We’ll take some questions. Jim, just give us an idea. If you do drive it in the rough, um, how how how playable is it? I think it’s very dependent on which hole you drive it in the rough on. Um, obviously if you’re on, you know, 16, 18 or nine and you’re trying to get a five iron out of the rough, it’s it’s really hard to get it out. Um, I hit a couple in the rough today and kind of got away with it. One on I made birdie on 10 from the left rough for my third and um hit one on the green from the left rough on on the right rough on two. So, you’ve got chances, but um yeah, if you if you drive it in the rough on the wrong hole, this place gets you pretty brutal pretty quickly. up to Mike seven, please. Hi, Ryan. Congrats on your round today. Um, how did the your victory this past weekend and and the manner of it, the way in which you won that tournament, how did that propel you into this week in terms of positivity? Yeah. Um, I think it it wasn’t necessarily the finish or anything. It was just the fact on Sunday that I was in contention and I had a a lot of really good shots and I probably took more out of that than the actual chip. And obviously that was incredible, but there’s a fair bit of luck involved in that. But you know, the shot I hit into seven to make birdie to to give myself a chance that almost means more I can take more out of that going into this week than maybe the chip in. And um yeah, I just kind of tried to take the same theory into this this week. Just, you know, pick my targets, hit my shots, and trust that I’m playing well. And um you know, it’s amazing what finding a bit of confidence can do. like all of a sudden the the bad shots that were, you know, irking me a couple of weeks ago didn’t seem to matter quite so much today. And um I think that’s a good way to play in a major because you’re going to get you’re going to hit a few bad shots, you’re going to get a few bad breaks and they are hard golf courses and being able to have some acceptance is pretty important. And I just wonder if I could ask what what’s the best piece of advice your famous rugby legend of a father has ever given you? I’m I’m going to misquote him here somehow, but the the idea of it was if you like hard work beats talent. If you if you work hard to be the best you can be, you can live with whatever happens. But if you don’t do the work, there’ll always be that little thing in your head, the the what if. What if I’d have done this differently or done this better? So, that’s what dad kind of drilled into me as a kid. um you I’m a little different than him in terms of um how I approach things. He’s very analytical. I’m I’m not really that way, but um you know, I certainly learned a lot lot him growing up and um you know, he was I think he’s incredibly proud. He was incredibly proud last week obviously with the win and um yeah, it’s very lucky to have that kind of experience growing up. He was on my bag a lot too and I you know, even though it’s a different sport, I you know, I I gained a lot early on from that. go next to Mike 20 followed by 12 and three. Ryan, um, had you played uh the PGA tour event here before? And if not, what did you think of the property when you saw it? I played the PGA here in 17. Um, so I had good memories from 17. I played reasonably well that week for the most part. um you know I knew coming in that it’s a beast of a golf course and um you know obviously it’s been redone a little bit since then and was um from what the changes look really good um and obviously you know they’ve just found a few extra yards on a few holes just to make it that little bit harder but you know I yeah I love the golf course you’ve maybe not that much strategy off the tea you’ve just got to hit it hit it hard and hit it pretty straight But, you know, there’s definitely a little bit of controlling your golf ball into the greens and um you know, picking the right spots where you want to hit it and where you’re trying to miss it and um you know, that’s what you want for a major championship. And can I just check quickly? Was it um did you have a mud ball on nine for the and how many how many did you have during the day? To be honest, that was the only bad one. There was definitely a few that had a little bit on it. Um, but you know, to be honest, the golf course compared I played at 7:00 yesterday morning and I think we may have struggled to play yesterday morning if if it was a tournament round because it was that wet. So, the golf course has dried out amazingly well. You know, there wasn’t any standing water. Um, and you know, it is what it is. It’s there’s going to be a few guys complain about them obviously over the first couple of days, but I thought the golf course played really really well considering how much rain we’ve had the you know, Monday, Tuesday this week. Were you sorry, final one for Were you surprised it wasn’t preferred lies or do you think it’s they don’t really want to do it? I yeah was expecting it not to be. Um I think probably all of us would have liked it to be but it you know it is a major championship. You know you you do expect it and um yeah hopefully there’s not too many and obviously we’re going to have it looks like we’re going to have good weather today and um tomorrow and that should dry the course out for the weekend really nicely. Thank you Rex. Ryan, not to go too far back, but how much did not making that team in 2022 here motivate you? Yeah, a lot. Obviously, um, you know, in hindsight, I probably felt like I was a little hard done by, but also, you know, I I wasn’t playing over here at the time. I could see Trevor’s point of view of wanting to pick someone that was that was US based and had the experience over here. Um, so yeah, it’s uh certainly motivating and and I think I won the week a week after. So yeah, there was definitely a little bit little bit of heat under the hood there and um you know it’s still a massive goal of mine that’s probably you know one of the few I haven’t ticked off. So hopefully can carry on the form from last week for a little while and make the team next year. Alex. Yeah. Ryan, could you talk about the chip in today? Did you use the same club that you used last week? No, that was lob wedge today. It was Sandwich on on Sunday, but they come in threes. I chipped in on Friday last week, chipped in on Sunday, and chipped in today. So, I probably won’t have one for another few few months, but that’s all right. And could you talk about 16 uh the difficulty of playing that hole and what it requires, at least from your mind? Yeah, I mean, I I don’t know if 16 will be the hardest hole on the golf course statistically for the week, but it feels like you’ve just got to hit two really good shots. I had a good drive today. had had seven iron in there, hit it to the middle of the green and you know ran away with a par and if I could do that for four days I’d be very happy. It’s just you know if you miss it off the tea you pretty much can’t get to the green that you know that’s one of the holes that if you do drive it in the rough you are dead. Um and then even if you do drive it in the fairway it’s going to be a long iron mid to long iron for most guys. in um you’ve got obviously the water left, the bunker right is not great and you know it’s one you just you literally if you stand on the tea and said you can have a par and play 17 you’d you’d run you wouldn’t you wouldn’t you’d be happy not playing wrap it up over here with Luke and then Adam uh Ryan you’ve got such a unique golf swing I was just wondering like how you go about deciding what’s important to leave alone and how and what to decide to change and tweak I’m definitely not the person to ask that the coaches are the ones that sort of decide that for me it’s all about if I can if I can get the ball flight I want then I don’t really care how it looks. Um you know like the left ankle for me’s been a product of having a dodgy left ankle and that’s why it’s flared out. Um you know I’ve had a bunch of cortisones in there and you know years ago I wouldn’t you I didn’t know if I had that much left in me if my ankle didn’t settle down. So um that certainly helped that. Um, I know for me, as long as I feel like I get the club in front and I can turn through it and hit a little fade for the most part, that’s that’s it. And it’s and it’s um, yeah, it’s it’s all about how the body moves rather than where the club looks and how pretty it looks. I’m definitely not going to be one of those guys and um, have been lucky to have, you know, a couple of coaches over the last decade or so that have have got that and and kind of just let me do my own thing and just make sure it doesn’t get too far outside the lines. Ryan, did you end up celebrating hard enough that you needed your wife to drive you over here? Yeah, defin uh I drove a little bit on uh on Monday. Um it was more the lack of sleep that got me. Obviously, the adrenaline’s going um everything on Sunday and I got to sleep all right and then woke up at 4:30 in the morning. I was like, there’s no way I’m getting back to sleep. My brain was just spinning. So, um, yeah, I drove for about an hour on on Monday and then swapped over with my wife, let the kids scream in the back and did a bunch of radio interviews back home. So, it was, um, it was an interesting drive up, but thankfully didn’t miss anything out here with the weather. What do you think you’d be doing this week if you if you hadn’t chipped that in and won the tournament? Um, I guarantee I’ll be going fishing at least once. Um, and outside of that, um, you know, just being dad, you know, this this is five weeks in a row. Obviously, last week was four, so I would would have take put the sticks down for five or six days and um yeah, just just relaxed and got ready for for Colonial next week, but obviously uh it’s been a nice nice change to to come here instead. I heard a rumor you you have a lot of course records back home. How many courses do you think you have on that? Oh, I don’t know to be honest. Um, I’ve definitely got Tara Edi, um, Tiari Links and Royal Oakland, which are, um, you know, Tiari I’m attached to, and Royal Oakland’s been my home club for the last 20 years. So, it’s nice to have those ones. And obviously, Tari is the one that is probably the most recognized course overseas for us. And, um, yeah, I’ve I’ve always generally like going low in social golf, at least. I haven’t done it as much on tour, but um, it’s always fun having a couple of them. What’s the number to beat at Tar 80? 61. So that Yeah, that was that was a nice that was actually playing with Mike Wear as well um when he came down a couple of years ago. So yeah, it was um that was a nice one to get. Thanks for your time, Ryan. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys.