Pebble Beach Pro-Am: Ryan Fox to miss up to three weeks of PGA Tour due to new signature event structure

Life as a fully carded member of the PGA Tour has gotten off to a frustrating start for Ryan Fox.

After missing the cut in his first start of the US tour in San Diego last week, he was home in Auckland this week with a plane ticket back to the States booked for Sunday that he doesn’t know if he’ll actually need.

Over the next three weeks, changes made to the PGA Tour for 2024 play their first major role in the make-up of a field. This week’s Pebble Beach ProAm is the first of the eight signature events of the season – small field tournaments with no cut and tough entry criteria.

With most of those qualifying marks coming from last year’s American circuit, Fox’s way into the two early signature events is to sit in the top 30 on the official world golf rankings.

At No 35, he misses out. The same goes for the Genesis Open in two weeks’ time.

Fox, who missed the cut in last week’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, isn’t the only fully carded PGA Tour newcomer who can’t get into the events. Eight of the other nine graduates from last year’s DP World Tour are among the others also on the outer.

“The make-up of the fields is quite different, and I’ve certainly not been a beneficiary of that,” Fox said.

“If it was the same format as last year, being in the top 50 in the world, I pretty much would have got all of these events. This year they knocked it to top 30 and I had a bit of a slow start to the year, a few guys got ahead of me and I dropped out.

“From a personal point of view, it’s been a frustrating last couple of weeks for me.”

Ryan Fox made his first PGA Tour start of the year at Torrey Pines last week. Photo / Getty Images

However, there is a chance he will feature at next week’s Phoenix Open. While that isn’t a signature event, it has drawn a star-studded field and Fox is currently listed as the second alternate as DP World Tour graduates are low in the priority rankings.

Should he be fortunate and have players drop out when entries close around midday Saturday (NZ time), he’ll fly out to Arizona on Sunday. If not, he’ll spend a little longer at home before the Mexico Open at the end of the month.

“There could be a few guys enter last minute, there could be a few guys drop out last minute, so it’s all up in the air,” Fox said.

“At this stage, I’ll just act like I’m going and if something changes, it’s a whole lot easier to unpack over a couple of weeks than it is to pack for six months in the space of 12 hours. I’ll see what happens in that regard. It’s a frustrating place to be, but it is what it is at the moment.”

Had he been guaranteed a spot in the Phoenix Open, Fox would have remained in the States after last week’s event at Torrey Pines, but with the uncertainty he chose to fly back to New Zealand rather than wait a week, not get into the tournament and fly back home anyway.

When Fox does ultimately return to the States, it will be for a significant period. Unable to get into two of the four tournaments in February and awaiting confirmation as to whether he’ll get lucky and land a spot in another, it means he loses almost a full month of his guaranteed eight as a PGA Tour Member, with the season ending in late August.

Because of that, he’ll be putting his full focus on the PGA Tour and retaining his place for 2025 for the next few months.

“I don’t know if or when I’ll come back home in that regard. It’s going to be strange just living out of a suitcase for six months and not having much of a base over there, but it’s just what needs to be done first year out.”

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