Over the course of eight weeks, Ryan Fox changed his life.
Making cuts but struggling for meaningful results early in the PGA Tour season, the Kiwi golfer was at the point where he and his family were discussing their options and where they might be based for 2026.
Then, the 38-year-old went on a run of seven tournaments where he claimed six top-20 finishes, including his first two career wins on the PGA Tour, to secure his card through until the end of 2027. He also sits inside the top 30 in the world rankings and the FedEx Cup (PGA Tour) standings.
Speaking to the Herald in the midst of a well-earned break before next week’s Scottish Open, having played in nine of the previous 10 weeks, Fox said it had been good to finally get an opportunity to reflect on what he had achieved.
“It’s certainly been nice to take a week off. I did actually touch the clubs this week. I had a little bit of practice in Jupiter here [in Florida], but I had a couple of afternoon naps earlier on in the week. I was that tired, so it certainly was needed,” Fox said.
“It’s amazing what a couple of good weeks can do. [I’m] still trying to work out, achieving a dream – winning on the PGA Tour once, let alone twice in that period – I think it’s going to take a little while for that to really sink in.
“It’s certainly been nice to just be able to chill out, have a bit of family time and look back and just have a little bit of a ‘wow, what the hell’s going on?’ basically.”
While in such situations it can be hard to pinpoint the exact moment when things started to trend in the right direction, Fox can also identify that moment to the exact shot.
After feeling like his best golf wasn’t too far away, despite some wildly mixed form, Fox had his Kiwi coach Marcus Wheelhouse join him in Texas for the C.J. Cup Byron Nelson in early May.
The pair worked on a couple of things and Fox got into a good place with his swing. While he finished that tournament in a tie for 60th, he carried that good feeling over into the Myrtle Beach Classic.
It was there that things clicked into place for the Kiwi and he was able to overcome the mental hurdles that had previously come with being in contention.
“It was the back nine at Myrtle Beach that it started to feel really good. I don’t really know how to describe it, but I’d gone from being nervous about being in contention and just maybe not feeling quite comfortable, to something kind of clicked in my head,” he recalled.
“I think I had a shot into 13 in that final round of Myrtle Beach; I hit a really good shot, and a shot that I didn’t feel overly comfortable hitting, and everything just kind of calmed down. It went from everything racing to all of a sudden, ‘hey, I’ve got a chance to win this tournament, it’s time to sack up’ basically.
“Everything felt a bit more comfortable coming down those last few holes, then obviously getting over the line and getting the win, it just took the pressure off going forward.”
It was a similar situation when he won the Canadian Open two weeks later, where his thought process was ‘I’m trying to win a tournament’ and not ‘I’m trying to hang on to a place and score FedEx Cup points.’
As for the mental hurdles he faced, Fox said he always welcomed getting butterflies but it was that sudden change in mindset that saw him earn his breakout wins – both of which came in playoffs.
“The butterflies are a good thing. That means it means something, and I’ve always been pretty good at not worrying about them. You just acknowledge they’re there and you’re like, ‘Okay, they’re good, you want them. It means that you’re excited and you really want to be in that situation.’
“I think what I struggled with is I’d had a big miss in terms of a golf shot for a while. Like, I could just randomly stand there and blow one way off the planet with a driver or miss a green by miles with a 7 iron and not quite know where that came from. All of a sudden down the stretch, those thoughts disappeared.
“I started playing like, pursuit golf, if that makes sense. I was trying to win a golf tournament. I was trying to hit a good shot, not standing there worried about where I could potentially hit it, and that was a nice place to be.
“As soon as that happened, that back nine at Myrtle, I basically played the next two months like that. I wasn’t worried about a bad shot. I wasn’t worried about the outcome. I wasn’t worried about anything else. I was just trying to hit a really good shot and deal with whatever happened after that.
“When you’re in that headspace, it’s amazing how many good shots you hit and how fewer bad ones you tend to hit.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.