New Zealander Ryan Fox clinched a place at this week’s PGA Championship in dramatic style with a 50-foot chip-in from the fringe of the green to win the Myrtle Beach Classic in a three-way play-off.
It was a first US PGA Tour title in 68 starts for the 38-year-old after he finished on 15 under alongside Canada’s Mackenzie Hughes and American Harry Higgs.
Fox earned his spot in the play-off when Hughes let a one-stroke lead slip with a bogey at the 18th and Higgs was only able to par the last at the tournament, which was played at the same time as the Truist Championship in Philadelphia, won by Austrian Sepp Straka.
He will now line up in the second major of the year which begins at Quail Hollow, North Carolina on Thursday.
Fox, whose father Grant played 46 times for the All Blacks and won the inaugural World Cup in 1987, previously played on the DP World Tour, winning three times including at the BMW PGA Championship in 2023 before trying his luck in the United States.
On the day when Mother’s Day was celebrated in America, he celebrated his win in South Carolina with his wife Anneke Ryff and two young daughters.
“So my wife sort of joked on Friday when I said, ‘What can I get you for Mother’s Day?’ And she goes, ‘Well, a trophy would be nice’. So I guess I lived up to my end of the bargain there,” said Fox, who also earns a two-year PGA Tour exemption.
“To have the wife and kids here is amazing.
“I haven’t transitioned probably as well as I would have liked over the PGA Tour. It was tough last year, I managed to just keep my card, and it’s been a scratchy start this year as well.
“In this game, you don’t get to win very often. You don’t get job security very often either.
“So it’s certainly nice to have that. And at the back of my mind, can feel like for the rest of the year, I can freewheel it a little bit. Hopefully that takes some pressure off.
“We’ll see how it goes in the next few weeks. But yeah, it’s feels like a monkey off my back, that’s for sure.”
