How do you top the greatest moment of your life? You try to do it all over again, says New Zealand’s British Open golf champion. MARC HINTON reports
It was not long after Ryan Fox’s crowning moment as a golfer, and one of the most celebrated achievements in the history of New Zealand sport, when the genial Aucklander and newly minted British Open champion was asked about his ambitions now he had knocked the bugger off, and climbed to the mountaintop of his sport.
He had just landed back in Jupiter, Florida, the in-season US home he shares with wife Anneke and their two girls, and was about to head back to New Zealand on a flying visit to show off the Claret Jug he had hardly let leave his side in the weeks since his remarkable triumph at Royal Birkdale.
The 39-year-old son of an All Blacks legend became just the third Kiwi male to claim one of golf’s esteemed majors in the history of the sport. The venerable Bob Charles did it back in 1963 when the elegant lefty roared to victory in the Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St Annes, and it remained the signature achievement of a celebrated career.
Michael Campbell was the other, outduelling a certain Tiger Woods down the stretch to claim a memorable 2005 US Open crown at Pinehurst No 2. Ditto for it being a result he was
never able to emulate.
So, as Fox reflected on his remarkable achievement on the Southport links, just north of Liverpool, it was worth asking how he would reset and refocus after this career-defining result. He had roared into contention from 52nd at the halfway point – no one in the sport’s history had ever come from deeper to claim a major title – made his move with a sizzling Saturday 62 and then played near flawless golf down the stretch on Sunday to claim the championship, by a shot, with a remarkable birdie on 18 he still doesn’t know how he found within him.
Fox took three weeks off after Birkdale to recalibrate because, simply, he had to. He returned for the PGA Tour’s post-season stretch, but understandably was not able to find a rhythm first time back out at the St Jude Championship.
“If you’d have given me the career I had before [the Open] when I first turned pro or was playing amateur golf, I would have absolutely jumped at it,” he says. “A couple of PGA Tour wins, a few DP World Tour wins, playing on the Tour as long as I have … this would have been above my wildest dreams. Now you throw a major championship in the mix and the only thing I’ve got is, ‘holy s**t, what do I do from here’?”
But Fox, for all his grip-and-rip golfing mentality, and his down-to-earth Kiwiness – he’s as approachable and genial a Kiwi pro as there is plying their trade globally – is also a thoughtful type. He understands a juncture like this takes some downloading.
“First, I need to process what’s actually happened, and then I need to figure out what the hell is next,” he says. “I’m going to lean on my [support] team and my family for how I deal with that. This does open a lot of doors. I’m not even sure what all of them entail. I’m in the majors for the next five years, I’ve got status on the PGA and DP World (European) Tours for the next five years.
“It just makes everything … the golf side of things, the logistics side, like scheduling and stuff, pretty easy. It probably makes the rest of my life quite a bit harder, certainly more complex. There will be a lot more going on, obviously a lot more scrutiny and what comes with that.”
Another major seems a logical refocus point. Fox smiles knowingly at that suggestion.
“I’d like to have a chance again. And if I got a chance again and didn’t pull it off, I’d still go, “I got one done”. My caddie said it to me best on the Sunday night after a few wines. ‘Foxy, you might only ever have one putt to win a major in your career, and you f…in’ holed it’.
“Dad (record-setting, World Cup-winning All Blacks No 10 Grant Fox) always said to me in a rugby sense, you’ve got to climb the mountain each week, but you’ve got to go back down it to climb the next one. I’ve reached the mountaintop. Now I’ve got to climb back down to figure out what’s next.”
Time is on his side. He had the rest of the tour finals, then the President’s Cup to wrap up his year. Then his now customary Kiwi summer sojourn at home before he does it all again in ‘27. Except this time as a major champion. They can never take that away.
Golf – Marc Hinton