Kiwi golfer Ryan Fox joins Martin Devlin on It’s Only Sport after his first slew of tournaments on the PGA Tour in 2024. Fox has competed in five events, three of which he’s failed to make the cut in while the other two he’s finished in a tie for 35th and a tie for 41st.
Fox talks to Devlin about why his game seems so off at the moment, whether or not American courses are trickier than the European ones to play on, his hole-in-one on the 17th at TPC Sawgrass, and more.
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Ryan thanks so much for joining us mate you’re in Tampa so when’s the next 20 uh starts tomorrow which is the Val spark at at in a brook so um hopefully this is the start of some form it’s been not not not great but there’s been signs
Of it and there’s been signs of it not being there as well you got to get back on the horse it happens real quick doesn’t it it does yeah I mean golf’s a funny game yeah I’ve said it enough times you feel like you’re two swings away from
Playing good and you’re two swings away from playing bad so hopefully I’m just two swings away from playing good now what do you put it down to because again I mean in all of these tournaments and we saw it at s grass as well you’re hading some great shots and that first
Round I thought it was excellent and then it just you know just kind of slipped away yeah it’s last week was a funny one I got a virus on uh Thursday um and sort of woke up Friday morning with really sore hands and feet feeling lethargic and laded and that’s
Not a golf course you want to be feeling like that on and I just didn’t have it on Friday and it was a bit disappointing cuz I actually I came off Thursday obviously I had a a couple of pretty incredible shots on Thursday but you
Know my my back nine which was the front nine I felt like I had a lot of really good shots and you know felt like I was starting to find something and then you know it just kind of disappeared completely on on Friday not feeling myself and you know came into this week
You know feeling like I was back at square one a little bit what do you do in those circumstances do you go back onto the driving range how is it best for you to get over or get through it uh yeah I’ve just been working hard
Just trying to find a couple of feelings to take out onto the golf course and there’s certainly been some positive stuff over the last few weeks um I had a really nice last round at at the cognizance um in West Palm and obviously you know I decent first round at the
Players um and I just it’s just been one of those trips so far I just haven’t able to put it all together you know I’ve had signs of it um you I’ve had a couple of good rounds I’ve had rounds where something’s gone really well and then everything else kind of hasn’t
Worked um yeah I’ve had you know rounds where I felt like I played okay and couldn’t score it’s it just seems like golf is is getting me at the moment and you know I’ve had a pretty good couple of years and just unfortunately it just feels like at the moment it’s I’ve
Picked a bad time to have a little bit of a downturn and hopefully I can turn it around pretty quick what a bastard of a game it is isn’t it e uh yeah yeah and you know there’s it’s been tough travel-wise this year oh yeah had the family there’s been some
Uncertainty schedule wise you know traveling with two kids has been great but that’s pretty hard and um you know kind of not knowing where you’re going and everything new and trying to learn golf courses you know you put it all together and there’s a whole bunch of little things that the Comfort level’s
Not quite there like it is in Europe and you know all of that stuff can just equate to being a littleit but often when you’re playing against the best players in the world week in week out you don’t have to be very far away from
It to to look a little silly and you know the golf courses we play are pretty brutal as well and it’s the same thing you know you hit good shots and you get punished pretty quickly and get bad shots and and you get punished really badly and that’s kind of what’s happened
To me um you know this this trip you know it hasn’t been that far away but it’s just been far enough away that I I haven’t been able to score and yeah look all it’s going to take is one good day to to change the whole complexion of it
One good week and I’ll be I’ll be up and running and I know that’s pretty close Ry foxes with us good old catch up after the TBC s grass and ahe of tamper T was asking yesterday he said ask Ryan he said are the courses particularly harder
Or than than the Europe ones or or or or how are they different um they they’re definitely a little bit harder um you’ve from what I’ve seen over here you’ve got a bit more length um the fairways are I don’t know if they’re narrower but the penalty for missing Fairways is a bit
More severe over here the roughs generally um up a lot more off the Fairway um around the greens the roughs really nasty and the greens are generally firmer and faster than what we play in Europe week in week out and you know you get that and you know it’s
Really easy to make bogey out here you know you all you got to do was Mr Green and you know you get a bad lie around the green and all of a sudden you hit it to 15t you make Bogey and you walk walk off and go well I didn’t really feel
Like I did a whole lot wrong there you know I I was just off and you know it’s I think it’s just the nature of these courses with everything I’ve played so far has been pretty tricky and um I don’t really expect that to change so
You know I’ve just got to be a bit more precise with things and know there’s definitely I’ve definitely had some scores going I just haven’t been able to put it together you know not little Al on 4 days in a row probably even two days in a row at this point so yeah
Hopefully I can I can piece it all together so Ron I’m really interested in the psych psychology of it because you know you’ve had a fantastic couple of years as you say but you’ve also gone through ups and downs so you know that the Downs are there and it’s almost like
I don’t know whether you think okay they are going to come at some stage everyone that just goes through it during every season probably every couple of years what do you do mate do you talk to people about it is there somebody that you sit down with or is it just you can
Figure it out all yourself these days um oh yeah I chat to the psycho work with K moris about it I’ve I chatted to my team about it um you know coaches and Cy and chedd to Dad about it and it look it’s just one of those things that’s I
Probably let it get to me early um know there was a little bit of uncertainty as well off the golf course schedule wise and some frustration about kind of not knowing where I was going and you know felt like I you know a couple of those
Events I I potentially could have got in um you know with a decent week or with you know the the rules being the same as last year although the categories being the same as last year and um I think I’ll probably let that affect me a
Little bit on the course as well um so I’ve just tried to go out and basically not care as much I know that sounds a weird thing to that’s generally what what I’ve what’s worked for me is go out and you know try to do really well but
Actually actually don’t care um and you know when you’re playing your best everything’s so so clear in that regard there’s no not worried about any outcome and not you know I think I’ve been a bit too focused on that you know focused on
Oh if I hit a bad one here I’m going to get punished and if you’re trying to play golf like that you know it’s it’s really hard the game’s hard enough as let alone worrying about where you might potentially hit it so I think the key
For me going forward is really to just get back into okay I want to hit it here and then don’t really care where it goes and deal with whatever happens and you know that I can take that from off the golf course to deal with all the difficult stuff happening that TR wise
And and schedule wise and yeah I I probably could have done a bit better job with that earlier in the year but um yeah it’s just one of those things that sometimes the little things get to you and that’s kind of what what was happening earlier and I feel a lot
Better about things now I’ve just got to actually turn that into decent golf so
