Kiwi golfer Ryan Fox resets the focus after career-changing year on the PGA Tour

Sunday, 19 October 2025

Ryan Fox cuts a satisfied figure as he leans back in his chair on a sunny afternoon at the Royal Auckland and Grange Golf Club, and contemplates the upshot of his most significant year as a professional. Driven, to use the vernacular of his sport, might be the best word to sum up his current state of mind.

The 38-year-old two-time winner on the 2025 PGA Tour is just in from nine holes spent mentoring an aspiring fellow Kiwi golfer – a rare stride down the fairways during his mostly strict off-season downtime – as part of Air New Zealand’s Dream Seats promotion. And, as becomes all too clear in an extended chat with the Star-Times, he is in somewhat of a happy place in this juncture taking stock of the year that was, and contemplating the path ahead.

Fox has possibly had a more complete golf year – he nominates 2022, when he also won twice on the European Tour, as a potentially more consistent run of form – but certainly not one as significant, or rewarding financially, as this past annum that included playoff victories at the Myrtle Beach Classic and Canadian Open, and starts in three of the four majors.

The dream year, we wonder, to borrow the airline’s promotional tag?

“Pretty much,” he smiles. “The dream was always winning on the PGA Tour, and this was the first year it felt like it got into the achievable goals category, rather than this thing to achieve at some point. To do it once was crazy – but twice … I don’t really know how to describe it.

“That 10-week stretch through the middle of the year, with a couple of majors in there, a bunch of decent results and a couple of wins … I ticked every goal I wanted to. It sets everything up now – a career-changing year would be the best way to describe it.”

Fox played 25 times on the tour in’25, made 19 cuts, had those two notable victories – both in wild playoffs featuring long-range shots to seal the deals – had one other top-10 finish, banked US$4.2 million (NZ$6.6m) in prize-money, and got as high as No 23 on the world rankings (now 39).

He also finished tied for 28th at the PGA, tied for 19th at the US Open and missed the cut at the Open in his three major starts. Two out of three ain’t at all bad.

Some moons aligned. He made himself a US base for the year, his coach (Marcus Wheelhouse) travelled for the first time since Covid, and was with him the week before both victories, and there was a dash of second-year comfort about his work.

“I always believed my good golf was good enough to compete with the best players in the world, but now I know it is,” he surmises, supping on a sugar-free Coke. “I’ve kind of proved it to myself … maybe not just this year, but over the last few years.

“I’ve still got to find it, and that’s hard to do. But I know if I can put myself in a position to win, I’ve done it before, I’ve beaten some of the world’s best players, and that’s a good place to be coming down the stretch.”

Those twin playoff victories also came with their share of drama.

“I haven’t had much luck in playoffs over the years,” he reflects. “I’ve had a couple of people hole crazy putts on me. To be on the other end of that, holing a chip shot (to win at Myrtle Beach) and then I probably hit the best shot of my life, that 3-wood into the 4th playoff hole in Canada … Steve Williams always said to win a tournament you don’t just have to play well, you have to get lucky on top of it.”

This son of an All Blacks great, and as approachable a professional sportsman as you get, has always been a straight-shooting type. If he’s struggling, he’ll suck it up and admit it between gritted teeth. But if he’s soaring, like he clearly is now, he’ll capture the essence of confidence and cohesion as well as anyone.

So, he’s hungry for more as he eyes a potentially even more exciting year ahead where he gets to plot his own path through the PGA Tour, has already secured spots in three of the majors, is well placed to add the fourth, and is also a very good shot at making his President’s Cup debut, and ticking off another career goal.

“The expectation has gone up,” he says with a grin. “I’ve got a lot to look forward to. I’m ready for this. I get to play a bunch of events you dream of playing on the PGA Tour, and it’s pretty easy to get excited for those.”

We wonder if, perhaps, getting into the mix at the business end of a major might be his next step?

“I’d love to be top-5, top-10 in a major. It’s hard to do. The golf courses are tough, it’s the best players in the world, and it’s also really hard to pick the weeks you’re going to play well. In golf you can turn up, do everything right, and it can go badly. Then you can turn up feeling awful and stand on the first tee on Thursday and something clicks and it feels great again. It’s really hard to pick which week it’s going to be, but hopefully next year one of those is a major.”

Fox is well placed to play in all four of the bigs. He’s in for the Masters, after missing out this year, the Open and PGA. And if he can stay inside the world top-60 he’ll get a US Open spot as well.

His favourite? “A tossup between the British and Masters – two very different events. The Masters is perfect and pristine, and I find links golf really hard to beat. We’ve definitely grown up here in those conditions a lot more than the Augusta ones.”

As mentioned he’s in off-season mode now, refreshing from a sapping schedule, staying off the course as much as he can, working on getting his body back in shape. “I didn’t realise how tired I was until I stopped,” he says. “That Travellers event the week after the US Open, I got a stomach bug and had two weeks off. I felt like, ‘I’m done’. I had some big events left, but there was not much left in the tank.”

He’ll step the golf back up in early November, get in three weeks’ work with his coach before the Aussie PGA and Open, and then return for his annual ‘Chasing the Fox event in Auckland’. But there will be no New Zealand Open. with four PGA Tour signature events either side.

Meantime he’s rapt to be part of Air NZ’s Dream Seats programme, mentoring all-abilities golfer Keenan Membery – a young man from the Waikato with big dreams – whom he’s out with this day, as well as young pros Jayden Ford and Jared Edwards.

Membery, who has a club foot and feels the pinch in the latter part of rounds, is a plus-1 golfer out of Te Kowhai who aims to be the world’s No 1 all abilities player.

He’s got a ways to go, making it out of the backwoods of New Zealand, in a branch of golf he hopes to grow awareness of, but says having someone like Fox to mentor him improves his prospects.

“Ev kid has that dream of being a pro golfer,” he says. “With my disability it’s changed a little bit on going down the all abilities route. I think my golfing ability is good enough to be competitive with the best in the world, but if it doesn’t work out hopefully I can promote it enough for the next generation to come through a better pathway.

“Just spending the day with Ryan is very surreal, and so beneficial. It just felt like another round of golf with a very genuine guy who offered some great advice around a number of things.”

From Fox’s perspective, it was a role he jumped at. “I get to play with some upcoming golfers who have a dream, and maybe help them out a little. I know 15-18 years ago when I was going through the journey, something like this would have been massive for me. It’s an easy way to give back.”