Golf: Why grass has Ryan Fox thinking ahead of Andalucia Masters

When playing golf at the highest level, it’s important to understand your grasses.

Throughout the world, courses in different climates pose different challenges - with the rather unique variable of the playing surface being a key factor to consider ahead of a tournament.

It’s one element Ryan Fox is well aware of ahead of this week’s Andalucia Masters DP World Tour event at Sotogrande in southern Spain, a course where Bermuda grass is sure to test the mettle of the field.

“It’s grasses that we’re not overly familiar with at home; Bermuda grass is very grainy and can be quite hard to judge,” the New Zealand world number 32 explained.

“Bermuda grass is a fair bit heartier than the other ones and requires a fair bit less maintenance. It’s a funny grass to play; in terms of rough, you don’t need the rough overly long for Bermuda grass to be quite penal.

“It’ll sit down in it and it becomes really hard to judge what it’s going to do; it either goes really far and flies, or it goes really, really short and comes out bad. There’s a fair bit of guesswork involved in that this week; thankfully for us, they don’t have Bermuda greens. Bermuda greens are quite grainy and the ball will break a different way to the slope.

“The way the grass sits on the green really affects the way the ball rolls, so thankfully we’ve got bent-grass greens, which are about as good as you get anywhere in the world. It’s just around the greens and the rough that is a little bit different to normal.”

The playing surface brings with it one key decision before Fox has even left the house to head to the course. With professional golfers only allowed to carry 14 clubs in their bag, Fox finds himself choosing between carrying a three-iron or a seven-wood this weekend.

A seven-wood provides a bit of peace of mind in the rough, while Fox’s three-iron can be a handy feature in his bag for use off the tee, if conditions call for trying to keep the ball low.

With the forecast expecting the wind to lift, Fox said he would be carrying the three-iron this week, which sees him keep the same 14 clubs he had carried since the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in mid-September.

That set-up has been working a treat for Fox, who won the tournament at Wentworth - one of the pinnacle stops on the DP World Tour (European Tour) - and finished in a tie for second at the Dunhill Links Championship a fortnight later.

That has put Fox is in prime position to wrap up a PGA Tour card for the 2024 season, with the top 10 players not otherwise exempt on the DP World Tour earning a card to the sport’s showpiece tour.

As it stands, Fox holds the top spot for golfers who don’t already have a fulltime PGA Tour card, sitting third on the DP World Tour order of merit behind only Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm. His next-closest rival, Poland’s Adrian Meronk, is about 700 points behind him.

There are only five tournaments left in this year’s DP World Tour, including this weekend’s Andalucia Masters, with the season coming to its climax at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai in mid-November.

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.