Reflecting on his performance in his first tournament of the season, Ryan Fox said “rusty would probably be the best word for it”.
The World No 30 golfer was back in action last week in Abu Dhabi and put together a mixed weekend; sitting seven-under-par in ninth after two roundsbefore finishing one-over in a tie for 65th.
While he was quick to admit how play certainly was a factor in how the weekend ended up, Fox was stuck with a broken driver in his third round and had to use an unfamiliar one for his fourth.
For a golfer whose distance off the tee is a big weapon, it was far from an ideal situation to begin the year in.
“I played really nicely on Friday and I actually felt like the game wasn’t too far away on Saturday, but I cracked my driver,” Fox said.
“I think it probably happened on Friday and I unknowingly took in a broken driver into Saturday and that just killed me, to be honest. I basically took away my number one weapon and I just kind of lost the plot a little bit on Saturday. I had a new driver head for Sunday and it took a little bit to get used to that on the golf course as well.
“I had nine holes where I didn’t have a clue what was going on but thankfully I put together nine good holes on the back nine and could bring something into this week. So, there was definitely some positives there; I had probably 27 really good holes of golf — on Friday afternoon and the back nine on Sunday — and a whole bunch of crap in other places. But it was nice to get back into tournament mode.”
Ryan Fox during the Abu Dhabi Championship last week. Photo / Getty
Fox will turn things right back around this weekend at the Dubai Desert Classic — with a like-for-like driver replacement in hand — where he has been grouped alongside world No 1 Rory McIlroy and No 24 Tommy Fleetwood for the first two days of the tournament.
“I’ve got to up my game a little bit from last week hopefully,” Fox said.
“But it’s good to be paired in a group like that. Those are the groups you kind of dream of. I don’t know if there’ll be too many people watching in the morning if it’s raining, I don’t think they quite know how to deal with rain over here, but come Friday afternoon, if it’s nice and sunny, there’ll be plenty of people following our group which will be very cool.”
The weather is expected to make life difficult for the first round of the tournament on Thursday afternoon (NZ time), with, surprisingly, rain forecast in Dubai.
“It’s just about trying to minimise your mistakes; you probably can’t be quite as aggressive,” Fox said of having to adjust for the potential wet weather.
“[I’m] expecting it to be pretty crappy [on Thursday] and even par or just making pars is going to be pretty good around Emirates Golf Club.”
