Ryan Fox celebrates after a hole-in-one on the 17th hole at The Players Championship on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. Photo / Getty Images
Ryan Fox celebrates after a hole-in-one on the 17th hole at The Players Championship on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. Photo / Getty Images
Professional golf deals in the finest of margins.
One misread putt, one misplaced tee shot or one errant approach can be the difference between making a cut or bowing out of a tournament after two days – Ryan Fox is experiencing just how fine those margins can bein his sophomore season as a fulltime PGA Tour member.
Of the three events the Kiwi has started on the PGA Tour this year, he has made just one cut, yet both missed cuts were by just one stroke.
Fox’s assessment of his year to date is one of slight frustration as he tells the Herald he feels his play has been of a higher standard than what the leaderboards say.
“To be honest, it’s been better than what the results show,” the 38-year-old said.
“Phoenix, I played pretty solid, just made nothing on the weekend and it was kind of the same in Mexico and Palm Beach a couple of weeks ago. I had some pretty good ball-striking and was pretty slow with the putter, made a couple of silly mistakes and missed both cuts by one [shot].
“I felt like the game was close, I’ve made a couple of tweaks going into this week and everything feels pretty good.”
Plying your trade on the PGA Tour sometimes means accepting you may get beaten while playing good golf, Fox says.
“You look at the Cognizant [tournament] a couple of weeks ago, I was I think eight shots or nine shots behind the leader and I missed the cut – that doesn’t happen very often. The guy that won was a shot ahead of me through two days.
“The margins over here are pretty small. I wouldn’t say good golf isn’t good enough, it’s just okay golf isn’t good enough.
“You have to play good just to make cuts and compete, I’ve played good golf for say one of two days, rather than two days.
“Thankfully this week it’s a little different, it’s a stronger golf course so I think that might help. It’s a bit more of a ball-striker’s golf course rather than a putting competition.”
The week Fox finds himself in is the week of The Players Championship, regarded as the sport’s unofficial fifth major due to the combination of a challenging course at TPC Sawgrass and the most competitive field in golf.
Ryan Fox picks his ball out of the hole after holing his tee shot on the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass. Photo / Getty Images
Fox says The Players having a major championship feel is not a sentiment held solely by fans, but by the players as well.
“It’s probably the strongest field in golf. I think there is 40 out of the top 50 this week. Everyone’s here, it’s a great golf course and the set-up in terms of hospitality, the grandstands and everything, it certainly feels like a major championship.
“It’s a major championship-style golf course, there’s a lot of trouble out there. The rough’s up, the greens will get firm and fast by Sunday. You’ve just got to play well around here.”
The aforementioned tweaks are centred around adding a degree of loft to his irons in the hope of increased height on his ball flight, allowing Fox to get closer to the pins with iron shots without sacrificing distance.
“I think over here, you just need to hit it higher and be able to attack some of those tighter pins and the easiest way to do that was just to add a degree of loft to the irons.
“I haven’t really changed distances too much but the flight looks a little higher and a bit more spin, which hopefully helps me get a little bit closer.
“To be honest, I could probably afford to lose a little [distance] in my irons, I hit it pretty far as it is. Even If I lost half a club and gained a bit more height, a bit more flight, a bit more spin, that would be beneficial.”
Fuelling Fox’s hopes at TPC Sawgrass is having his family based in Florida, meaning more time with the kids between events and being able to drive to events within the state rather than fly - easing the pressure on Fox’s loved ones that comes with life in professional golf.
“We’ve got a place in Jupiter [a town in Florida], which seems to be where most of the PGA Tour is and it’s been good so far.
“We get to drive to The Players this week, we get to drive to Tampa next week and everything’s just a little easier basically – it couldn’t be any harder than last year and so far it’s worked really well.”
Fox tees off at The Players Championship at 5.45am NZT on Friday.
Will Toogood is an online sports editor and golf reporter for the NZ Herald. He enjoys watching people chase a ball around on a grass surface so much he decided to make a living out of it.
