Ryan Fox begins PGA Tour campaign at Farmers Insurance Open; next few weeks remain uncertain

Ryan Fox tees off his debut season as a member of the PGA Tour this week with a cloud of uncertainty hovering over his immediate future.

Fox will be one of the first on the tee boxes at Torrey Pines in San Diego for the Farmers Insurance Open this week, teeing off on the North Course on Thursday morning (5:50am NZ time).

The tournament is the first event on his American schedule after two DP World Tour events in Dubai in recent weeks, but it is the only tournament he has locked in over the next four weeks as it stands.

“[It’s] a bit up in the air, to be honest,” Fox told the Herald of his immediate schedule.

“I’m a couple of spots out of getting into [the Pebble Beach Pro-Am] next week on world ranking, so I need a good week this week to get in.

“At this stage, I’m not quite in the Waste Management event in Phoenix. Although, a couple of spots out, I’ve probably got a fairly good chance of getting into that event.

“So, I don’t really know what I’m doing in the next few weeks. I could end up playing three weeks in a row if I play well, four weeks in a row if I play really well this week. If not, and I don’t get lucky enough to get into Phoenix, I might have three weeks at home.”

Fox expects his schedule to become much clearer after the Genesis Invitational – another event he is currently not in the field for - in mid-February, at which point all the signature events have an opposite field event as well.

The first of those is in early March, with the signature Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Puerto Rico Open being held in the same week.

“If I’m not in a signature event, I’ll probably go play the opposite field event.

“I think for the rest of the season I should be in most of the normal PGA Tour events. There are just a few stacked up in this part of the year that are a bit harder to get into for some reason.”

Fox has had a less-than-ideal lead-up to this week’s tournament at Torrey Pines, with the tournament having a rare Thursday (NZ time) start. With the NFL holding both the AFC and NFC Championship games on Monday, the tournament was shifted forward a day and will finish on Sunday. The first two days of the contest will see players on both the North and South Courses at Torrey Pines, with only the latter used for the second half of the tournament.

With Fox travelling to San Diego from Dubai after taking part in the Dubai Desert Classic last week, it has meant one less day to prepare.

“Getting into the US was a long trip from Dubai. I think it was a 16-hour flight, a couple of hours at immigration then a two-hour drive down to San Diego, my only saving grace was that they had a full washout [on Monday] so I wouldn’t have been able to do anything even if I arrived earlier on Monday.

“Prep’s been very limited, but I’ll just give it a crack and see what happens.”

Fox was able to play nine holes on the North Course on Wednesday, and while it was very wet, it played well enough for Fox to believe there was a score to be made if he could keep the ball out of the rough.

“I’ve played the South Course once socially about 15 years ago and thankfully I actually remember the golf course which is a good thing. I remember it being very strong and I don’t think anything’s changed in that regard,” he said.

“Fairways are going to be very important this week, but it’s a golf course you need to hit driver a lot on because if you lay it back, it plays very long.

“It’s a tough course to jump right in and not have great prep for, but it is what it is this week. I wanted to play a couple in Dubai, and not having good prep for this week was the price to pay for that.”

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